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The Tiger
in the House

THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS BOOK

PRINTED ON ARTCRAFT INDIA TINT
LAID PAPER IS LIMITED TO TWO
THOUSAND COPIES OFjW^I|:H^THIS
IS NUMBER

y '

BOOKS BY CARL VAN VECHTEN

INTERPRETERS

IN THE GARRET

THE MUSIC OF SPAIN

THE MERRY GO-ROUND

THE TIGER IN THE HOUSE

MUSIC AND BAD MANNERS

MUSIC AFTER THE GREAT WAR

- Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2015

https://archive.org/details/tigerinhouse01vanv

k X

■Ci.

The

T iger in theHouse

Carl Van V e c h t e n

“Dieu a fait le chat pour dormer a
I’homme le plaisir de caresser le tigre.”

MERY

New York / Alfred ^ A ^ Knopf

MCMXX

COPYEIGHT, 1920, BY
ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA

FOR EDNA KENTON
. . . AND FEATHERS

“ Ho<w lucky to be a cat
Free to accept or — refuse
IF hat is offered! ”

CONTENTS

Chapter I.

By way of correcting a popular prejudice

Chapter II.

Treating of traits

Chapter III.

Ailurophobes and other cat-haters

Chapter IV.

The cat and the occult

Chapter V.

The cat in folklore

I3I

Chapter VI.

The cat and the law

159

Chapter VII.

The cat in the theatre

170

Chapter VIII.

The cat in music

187

Chapter IX.

The cat in art

2II

Chapter X.

The cat in fiction

231

Chapter XI.

The cat and the poet

247

Chapter XII.

Literary men who have loved cats

277

Chapter XIII.

Apotheosis

302

Bibliography

309

Index

359

ILLUSTRATIONS

Carl Van Vechten and his tortoise-shell and white smoke tabby Per-
sian queen, Feathers Frontispiece

From a photograph by Harriet V. Furness

FACINU PAGE

The cat sometimes makes strange friends 14

From a drawing by Grandville in Les metamorphoses du jour

This brown tabby short-haired cat is named Mary Garden 24

From a copyright photograph by Harriet V. Furness

The cat and the frog 32

From a drawing by Steinlen in Des chats

Mrs. Channing Pollock’s Osiris resents an invasion 36

From a photograph by Paul Thompson

Champion King Winter 42

From a copyright photograph by Harriet V. Furness

“ Gather kittens while you may ” 58

From a copyright photograph by Harriet V. Furness

The black cat 78

From a drawing by Aubrey Beardsley to illustrate Poe’s story, published
in a large paper edition of Tales of Mystery and IVonder, by Stone
and Kimball; Chicago; 1895

An Egyptian bronze head of a cat 86

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Japanese pillar-prints by Koriusai 92

From the collection ~of Arthur Davison Ficke

A Japanese fantasy 96

From Champfleury’s La chats

Minette washes 112

From a drawing by Gottfried Mind

“ A life of luxury ” 124

From a drawing by Grandville in Vie privee et publique des animaux

The cat is an oriental 132

From a photograph by Harriet V. Furness

“ II ne faut pas faire passer tons les chats pour sorciers ” 142

From a drawing by Grandville in Vie privee et publique des animaux

Illustrations

FACING PAGE

Prince Dorus and the enchanted cat 148

From Prince Dorus, by Charles Lamb; London; i8n

Japanese women and cat 152

From a Japanese print by Mamaro in the collection of Arthur Davison
Ficke

The cat and the ball of thread 174

From a dravuing by Steinlen in Des chats

La mort de Cochon: tragedie 184

From an engraving in Moncrif’s Les chats

I/C gar^on au chat 204

From the painting by Pierre Auguste Renoir

Boris Anisfeld’s portrait of his daughter, Morelia Borisovna, and

her cat 218

Banjo 220

From the painting by Llenriette Ronner

The entrance of the respectable Puff 224

From a drawing by Grandville in Vie privee et publique des animaux

Cover design for Steinlen’s Des Chats 226

The princess and the cat 230

From the Japanese print by Kiyonobu I, in the collection of Arthur
Davison Ficke

Beauty and Brisquet 238

From a drawing by Grandville in Vie privee et publique des animaux

“ A little lion, small and dainty sweet ” 258

From a copyright photograph by Harriet V. Furness

“ Jamais chatte ne fut si belle ; 264

Jamais chatte ne me plut tant ”

From a photograph by Harriet V. Furness

The cat and the alchemystical cauldron 268

From a photograph by Harriet V. Furness

The tomb of Madame de Lesdiguieres’s cat 274

From an engraving in Moncrif’s Les chats

Rendez-vous de chats 290

From a poster by Edouard Manet

Feathers alert 304

From a photograph by Harriet V. Furness

The Tiger
in the House

1*1 .

'»•* ,v . ’ ", •

".V

Chapter One: By Way of Correcting a
Popular Prejudice

Whenever the subject comes up, and it may be said, speaking
with moderation, that it comes up forty times a day, some one
invariably declares, “ No, I don’t like cats, I like dogs.” The
cognate dichotomous remark, which is equally popular, preva-
lent, and banal, is “ No, I don’t like Dickens, I like Thack-
eray.” As James Branch Cabell has conveniently pointed out
for all time, ‘‘ to the philosophical mind it would seem equally
sensible to decline to participate in a game of billiards on the
ground that one was fond of herring.” Nevertheless both
controversies continue to rage and careless thinkers continue
to force Dickens and the cat into categories. The dog-lovers,
in the opposition sense (for it is really possible to care for both
dogs and cats, just as it is possible to read ” Pendennis ” and
‘‘ Bleak House ” with equal delight), say of the soft puss that
he is sly and deceitful, thieving and ungrateful, fickle and
cruel, a friend to home and not to man. From this inconsid-
erate, and unconsidered, opinion the derogatory and cata-
chrestic adjective ” catty ” has been derived, an adjective
which when used in its ordinarily accepted sense I find particu-
larly abhorrent, for who should be described as catty unless it
be some gracious and graceful female, dignified and reserved,
redolent of beauty and charm and the mystery of love? The
cat-lovers on their side, so ardent, indeed, that in France they
have earned the sobriquet of felinophiles enrages, have not
been guiltless. Affectionate, intelligent, faithful, tried and
true are some of the adjectives they lavish indiscriminately on
their darling pets. It would seem, indeed, after reading

The Tiger in the House

some of the books, that cats spend their nine lives caring for
the sick, saving children from burning buildings, and helping
Mrs. Jellyby make small-clothes for the heathen in Africa.

The cat himself might have settled the question long ago,
had settling such matters been a part of the cat’s purpose in
life. You cannot reasonably expect a near relative of the
king of beasts (whom he much more closely resembles, by the
way, than a Japanese spaniel resembles a Newfoundland dog),
an animal who has been a god, a companion of sorceresses at
the Witches’ Sabbath, a beast who is royal in Siam, who in
Japan is called “ the tiger who eats from the hand,” the
adored of Mohammed, Laura’s rival with Petrarch, the friend
of Richelieu’s idle moments, the favourite of poet and pre-
late, to regard the stupidity of humankind in regard to him
with anything less than disdain. The cat, indeed, makes no
advances. He cares for the hearth and often he condescends
to display affection to human friends, just as he has been
known to entertain a vast liking for horses, parrots, and
tortoises, but even in the most heated of such relationships
he preserves a proper independence. He stays where he
likes to stay; he goes where he wants to go. He gives his
affection where it pleases him to give it (when, also, it might
be added) and he withholds it from those whom he deems
unworthy of it. In other words with a cat you stand on much
the same footing that you stand with a fine and dignified
friend; if you forfeit his respect and confidence the relation-
ship suffers. The cat, it is well to remember, remains the
friend of man because it pleases him to do so and not because
he must. Resourceful, brave, intelligent (the brain of a
kitten is comparatively larger than that of a child), the cat
is in no sense a dependent and can revert to the wild state
with less readjustment of values than any other domestic
animal. Therefore he is easily enabled to determine his own
end and purpose and to lead his own life. “ I love in the
cat,” said Chateaubriand to M. de Marcellus, “ that inde-

By Way of Correcting a Popular Prejudice

pendent and almost ungrateful temper which prevents him
from attaching himself to anyone; the indifference with which
he passes from the salon to the housetop. When you caress
him, he stretches himself out and arches his back, indeed,
but that is caused by physical pleasure, not, as in the case of
the dog, by a silly satisfaction in loving and being faithful to
a master who returns thanks in kicks. The cat lives alone,
has no need of society, does not obey except when he likes,
pretends to sleep that he may see the more clearly, and
scratches everything he can scratch. Buffon has belied the
cat; I am labouring at his rehabilitation and I hope to make
of him a tolerably good sort of animal, as times go.” ^

Without some such guide to the nature of the most interest-
ing of animals it is impossible to approach the subject from
any angle whatever. But with these few facts in mind I must
at once beg to insist upon a paradox. Stated simply the case
is this: each individual cat differs in as many ways as possible
from each other individual cat. Any unprejudiced observer,
interested enough in cats to inspire their devotion, will have
found this out for himself if he has ever become acquainted
with several cats at one time. Doubtless there are seraph
cats and demon cats as well but the characters of most pussies
lie somewhere between these intense blacks and whites. Cats
differ so much, indeed, that some of them even lack the most
generally distributed feline characteristics. It can be said
of cats in general, however, that they are all independent,
most of them amorous (their love habits, inspired by the
hardiest desires, are often supremely cruel-), and mystic.
On this last point there is little reason for doubt. Cats have
gnosis to a degree that is granted to few bishops as I shall
attempt to show in a later chapter. As for their independence

1 “ Chateaubriand et son temps,” by the Comte de Marcellus; 1859.

2 The theory of the American Shakers that the functions of sex “ belong to a
state of nature and are inconsistent -with a state of grace ” is not held by the
cat.

The Tiger in the House

it is simply the aristocratic quality of being natural. Cats
do not force their attentions upon others and they do not care
to have attentions forced upon them. But when a cat is
hungry or wishes to go out of doors or has amorous desires
he plainly declares his feelings. “ Why not? ” asks Colette’s
Kiki-la-Doucette, “Why not? People do.”® These are
reminiscences, inheritances, of the wild life which the cat has
never lost and never will lose. For in keeping with his royal
brother, the lion, he also has a strong racial instinct which
survives to be awakened when it is called. He has a longer
memory than Monna Lisa.

Yet in the degree in which they react to these instincts indi-
vidual cats differ, and these differences are accentuated by
treatment and by breeding, for cats inherit many traits, and
although it almost seems unscientific to say so, there is strong
evidence to the effect that they inherit acquired characteristics.
You will find it stated in some of the books that a cat who has
been deprived of her tail will occasionally produce tailless
kittens.

Many observers have recorded the eccentricities and idio-
syncrasies of cats. Wynter ^ speaks of a cat of his who
selected blotting paper on which to sit or lie. Meredith
Janvier’s Major Pussman contracted tuberculosis from sleep-
ing on a hot radiator. Clara Rossiter ® describes a puss
whose favourite occupation was to pull all the pins out of a
cushion and lay them out on the table, “ and when the last was
taken out, looking up into our faces with the most comical
expression and making us understand she wanted them re-
placed. However many times we stuck the pins in she would
pull them out.” This cat also took pleasure in devouring
flowers, which she removed from the vases. The Reverend
J. G. Wood tells us of a tom cat who was such an aristocrat

® “ Sept Dialogues de Betes.”

* " Fruit Between the Leaves.”

® “ Anecdotes of Pets”: “North British Advertiser” (Edinburgh); 1874.

By Way of Correcting a Popular Prejudice

that “ nothing would induce him — not even milk when he
was hungry — to put his head into the kitchen, or to enter the
house by the servants’ door.” Wynter had a cat who rose
suddenly one day and sprang up the chimney, a fire burning in
the grate all the while. A couple of hundred years earlier
the writer would have been burned for relating this incident.
This cat would eat pickles and liked brandy and water.
Lindsay ® mentions a cat with a fondness for porter and
Jerome K. Jerome writes of another who drank from a leaky
beer-tap until she was intoxicated. In a letter to Samuel But-
ler, dated December 24, 1879, Miss Savage remarks, “ My
cat has taken to mulled port and rum punch. Poor old dear!
he is all the better for it. Dr. W. B. Richardson says that
the lower animals always refuse alcoholic drinks, and gives
that as a reason why humans should do so too.”

It is the popular belief that cats have an Inherent dislike
for water and in general they are catabaptists, but my Ariel
had no aversion to water; indeed, this orange Persian puss
was accustomed to leap voluntarily into my warm morning
tub and she particularly liked to sit in the wash-hand-bowl
under the open faucet. Artault de Vevey® also had a cat.
Isoline, who took baths, jumping into the full tub. “ Cats
are popularly supposed to dislike wet,” writes Olive Thorne
Miller, “ but I have seen two of them in a steady rain conduct
an interview with all the gravity and deliberation for which
these affairs are celebrated.” There are innumerable re-
corded examples of cats swimming rivers to return to their
old homes and St. George Mivart tells us of a cat who plunged
into a swiftly running stream and rescued her three drowning
kittens, bearing them one by one to the shore. A writer in
“ Chambers’s Journal ” ® recalls a dejected black cat who com-

® “ Mind in the Lower Animals.”

“ Novel Notes,” P. 151.

® Artault de Vevey; “ Des Actes Raisonnes chez le Chat”; “Bulletin de
I’Institut General Psychologique,” Annee III, No. i; P. 13-14; Paris; 1903.

® “ Chambers’s Journal”; October 9, 1880, P. 646.

The Tiger in the House

mitted suicide by drowning! Fishing cats seem to be a com-
monplace. Lane quotes the “ Plymouth Journal ” in re-
gard to a cat who was accustomed to dive for fish and Ross “
writes of a Mr. Moody, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne who had
a cat who caught minnows, eels, and pilchards in this manner.
There is likewise the evidence of a celebrated Egyptian fresco
in the British Museum which depicts a cat acting as a re-
triever, shows us a gentle puss leaping into the Nile from a
boat in order to fetch and carry the slaughtered duck back into
the boat, an incident that G. A. Henty has woven into his tale
for boys, “ The Cat of Bubastes.” Certain cats of today
find it natural to retrieve. My Ariel would run after a cat-
nip mouse and bring it to me, as often as I would throw it.

C. H. Lane: “Rabbits, Cats and Cavies.” P. 239. The cat was named
Puddles. “ He used to go out a-fishin’ with me every night,” relates the fisher-
man. “ On cold nights he would sit on my lap while I was a-fishin’, and poke

his head out every now and then, or else I would wrap him up in a sail and
make him lay quiet. He’d lay down on me while I was asleep, and if anybody
came, he’d swear a good un, and have the face off on ’em if they went to touch
me, and he’d never touch a fish, not even a little teeny pout, if you didn’t give
it to ’im. I was obliged to take him out a-fishin’ or else he’d stand an’ yowl
and marr till I went back and ketched him by the poll and shied him into the

boat, and then he was quite happy. When it was fine he used to stick up at

the bow of the boat and sit a-watchin’ the dogs (dog-fish). The dogs used to
come along by the thousands at a time, and when they was thick all about, he
would dive in and fetch ’em out, jammed in his mouth as fast as may be, just
as if they was a parcel of rats, and he didn’t tremble with the cold half as
much as a Newfoundland dog who was used to it. He looked terrible wild
about the head when he came out of the water with a dog-fish. I larnt him
the water myself. One day, when he was a kitten, I took him down to the sea
to wash and brush the fleas out of him and in a week he could swim after a
feather or a cork.”

lie. H. Ross: “The Book of Cats.”

12 To the black cat, who has it in mind to move, the chinchilla cat gives the
following advice in Jerome K. Jerome’s “Novel Notes,” P. 147: “Try and
get yourself slightly wet. Why people should prefer a wet cat to a dry one I
have never been able to understand; but that a wet cat is practically sure of
being taken in and gushed over, while a dry cat is liable to have the garden
hose turned upon it, is an undoubted fact. Also, if you can possibly manage
it, and it is offered you, eat a bit of dry bread. The human race is always
stirred to its deepest depths by the sight of a cat eating a bit of dry bread.”

By Way of Correcting a Popular Prejudice

“ When visiting a friend in Patagonia,” W. H. Hudson records
in “ The Book of a Naturalist,” “ I was greatly astonished one
day on going out with a gun to shoot something followed by
the dogs to find a black cat in their company, and to see her
when I fired my first shot actually dashing off before the dogs
to retrieve the bird! ”

One person observes that cats are always gentle and polite,
that they eat their food daintily and never greedily, but I have
watched otherwise good-mannered felines who could gobble
and growl over their food with as much greediness and ill-
manneredness as any dog. In the mere matter of the selec-
tion of food cats vary as much as people. There are im-
perious, haughty, aristocratic cats who insist on being fed
esoteric dishes in a certain fixed spot, by certain people.
Other cats resemble Lafcadlo Hearn’s little red kitten who
“ ate beefsteak and cockroaches, caterpillars and fish, chicken
and butterflies, mosquito hawks and roast mutton, hash and
tumblebugs, beetles and pigs’ feet, crabs and spiders, moths
and poached eggs, oysters and earthworms, ham and mice,
rats and rice pudding, — until its belly became a realization
of Noah’s Ark.”

Cats are exceedingly nervous and they are not as a rule to
be trusted in railroad trains, for the slightest sound or move-
ment is likely to awaken terror and fast moving objects
usually inspire them with the keenest sense of fright. But
Avery Hopwood’s orange tabby Persian, Abelard, takes

“The Little Red Kitten,” in “ Fantastics,” P. 33.

1* “ Fulbert . . . now deeply troubled and revengeful, determined to inflict
that punishment and indignity on Abelard, which, in its accomplishment, shocked
even that ruder civilization to horror and reprisal.” From “The Story of
Abelard and Heloi'se.”

Raoul Gineste has treated the subject in a poem which begins;

On a fait couper matou,

Pour cause de proprete,

Et par esprit de bonte;

L’amour I’aurait rendu fou.

The Tiger in the House

motor rides with him, sitting sagely on the front seat without
a leash. When the car stops he leaps out and walks about,
ready to get back again when a start is agreed upon. Theo-
dore Hammeker, a flyer on the French front and in Palestine
during the late war, took his black cat, Brutus, with him on
his flights. The R-34, the first dirigible to cross the Atlantic
from England to America, carried the tabby cat. Jazz, as the
only animal passenger. And I am acquainted with a eupeptic

Son maitre, barde de lard,

Bourgeois stupide et cruel,

A trouve spirituel
De I’appeler Abelard.

In “ Les Chats” (P. 74) Moncrif quotes Isaac de Benserade’s poem, inspired
by the castration of a cat belonging to Madame Deshoulieres:

Je ne dis mot et je fais bonne mine
Et mauvais jeu depuis le triste jour
Qu’on me rendit inhabile d I’amour
Des Chats galans, moi la fleur la plus fine.

Ainsi se plaint Moricaut et rumine
Contre la main qui lui fit un tel tour;

II est glaciere, au lieu qu’il etoit four;

II s’occupoit, maintenant il badine,

C’etoit un brave, et ce n’ est plus qu’un sot,

Dans la gouttiere il tourne autour du pot,

Et de bon coeur son Serrail en enrage ;

Pour les plaisirs il avoit un talent,

Que I’on lui change au plus beau de son age:

Le triste etat qu’un etat indolent!

Catulle Mendes writes: "Rue Mansard, j’eus un chat, d qui Von donna le
nom d’un personnage de la IValkyrie. Mime etait beau comme un amour.
C’etait un matou d’un noir superbe; mais il repandait une odeur formidable et ne
se faisait pas faute de lacerer mes rideaux. On fut bien oblige de le confier d
un homme de Part, qui nous le ramena dans un etat absolu de neutrality. A
dater de ce jour. Mime s’enfonqa dans une tristesse phis noire que lui-meme.
Nous habitions au cinquieme Stage. Mime avait coutume, d certains moments
de la journee, de faire un petit tour sur la corniche de zinc qui regnait au long
de la facade interieure, sous nos fenetres. Un matin, je le vis — on je crus le
voir — s’elancer volontairement de cette corniche dans la rue. En tombant, il
rencontra un reverbere contre lequel il se cassa les reins. Je vous affirme que
je garde I’impression que Mime s’est suicide.’’

By Way of Correcting a Popular Prejudice

altered tom silver Persian who even goes to the movies on the
shoulder of his mistress !

Cats are popularly supposed again to prefer places to people
and there are literally thousands of recorded examples of cats
who have surmounted every kind of physical obstacle in order
to return to old homes from which they had been removed.
It would be as easy to give as long a list of cats who move regu-
larly with their families every year or so. A further list
could be compiled of cats who move of their own accord, often
from homes in which they are treated with every mark of
respect and in which they are surrounded with every comfort
and luxury. To those who feel that the recipient of atten-
tions should be grateful no matter in what form they come,
this strange conduct of cats will seem inexplicable, but I am
sure that some of my readers will understand that it is possible
to desire something which has nothing to do with luxury or
comfort. Occasionally, indeed, you will even find people who
are willing to leave rich homes for the pleasures of adventure.

The Cafs winged yearnings journey.

Unrestrained, o’er Time and Space,

muses Hiddigeigei, the Tom Cat, and cats with longings in
their souls invariably satisfy these longings, so far as they are
able. Carefully bred, tenderly nurtured Persian pussies have
been known to leave the silks and satins of the drawing-room
for the free life of the rooftop and companionship with ex-
tremely ill-bred, low-spoken, short-haired felines. Spouse-
breach has been known to result. Other cats have left
luxurious homes to take up a broader existence in a green
grocer’s shop, where the hunting is better and there is less
petting. The reverse often happens. A cat leaves a life of
poverty to enter into a life of luxury. On the whole, how-
ever, I would say that cats pattern their lives more on that of
May Yohe than on that of Cinderella. . . . To return to our
text it is undoubtedly true that there are perverse cats just as

The Tiger in the House

there are perverse people, who insist on residing in a certain
spot. But these cats have a good instinctive reason for this
obstinacy as I shall show later.

Some cats make fond and zealous mothers, taking every
care of their young, hiding them from danger, washing and
feeding them, and teaching them to play. Alice’s Dinah,
whose method of washing her babies was to hold the poor
things down by their ears with one paw, and with the other
paw rub their faces all over, was an excellent mother. Some
cats have such a strong instinct for motherhood that if their
offspring is taken away from them they suckle babies,^® lever-
ets,and even rats. Other cats have been known to neglect
or even to kill their young. One stolid young queen, prob-
ably having read de Maupassant’s “ Inutile Beaute,” drowned
her babies in a water butt; another, refusing to suckle her kit-
tens or, indeed, to go near them at all, was shut up with them
in a shed, whereupon she promptly put out their little lives
with blows from her strong hind feet. When she was re-
leased she walked out purring, evidently in a high state of re-
lief and contentment.

Cleanliness in the cat world is usually a virtue put above
godliness. Puss spends more time washing than debutantes
do changing their clothes and her attention to Gulliverian
hydraulics and other demands of nature is fastidious to a de-
gree. In the Cat State, Clarence Day, jr., quaintly observes,
the plumber, the manicurist, and the soap-maker would occupy
the highest social positions; preachers and lawyers, the lowest.
Nevertheless Siamese and Russian short-haired blue cats have
an odour, and I have seen cats of whatever colour, of whatever
breed, dirtier than any other animal could possibly be. A
kitten once lived with me, a kitten in every respect super-intelli-
gent, who refused to systematize his toilet operations. He

IB « Through the Looking Glass”: Chapter I.

VV. Lauder Lindsay: “Mind in the Lower Animals.”

Gilbert White: “The Natural History of Selborne.”

By Way of Correcting a Popular Prejudice

was a most amusing, adorably Impudent, tailless kitten who
followed me on the street one night in Paris. He walked
closely behind me for a quarter of a mile and when I put him
— he was very tiny — into my pocket he assented to the ar-
rangement by purring loudly. But when together we ascended
the steps of an omnibus, the conductor waved his hand grandly
with the admonition, “Pas de hetesf’’ So, with puss In my
pocket, I walked to my hotel. This cat had a delectable habit
of springing on my shoulder in the dark when I returned home
at night. Rubbing himself against my cheek he purred like
the kettle-drums In Berlioz’s Requiem. He was not impressed
by the art of Franz von Stuck and invariably, until I no longer
fastened it up, he succeeded In wresting an engraving of Salome
from the wall, although it was pinned very high and no article
of furniture underneath offered assistance in the operation.
This puss also had a mania for breaking dishes, and there was
no leaving tea-things around In his presence. Like all cats he
could alight on a full table of such knick-knacks without up-
setting anything, but once landed he delighted In disturbing
the equilibrium of the porcelain with his nimble and roguish
paw. These qualities did not alienate my affections, quite the
contrary. We quarreled Irrevocably over another matter
about which puss (as cats always are) was Inexorable and para-
mount. He refused to learn tbe uses of a box of sandd® nor

Claudine’s Fanchette was irreproachable in this respect. Colette Willy ob-
served her one day and set down her observations with such truth and good
humour that I cannot resist .the temptation to quote the passage from “ Claudine
a Paris” (P. 19): "Fanchette, heureuse fille, a pris gaiment I’internat. Elle
a, sans protestation, accepte, pour y deposer ses petites horreurs, un plat de
sciure dissimule dans ma ruelle, et je m’amuse, penchee, a suwre sur sa
physionomie de chatte les phases d’une operation importante. Fanchette se lave
les pattes de derriere, soigneuse, entre les doigts. Figure sage et qui ne dit
rien. Arret brusque dans le vjashing: figure serieuse et vague souci. Change-
ment soudain de pose; elle s’assied sur son seant. Yeux froids et quasi sevbres.
Elle se live, fait trois pas et se rassied. Puis, decision irrevocable, on saute du
lit, on court a son plat, on gratte . . . et rien du tout. L’air indifferent re-
par ait. Mais pas longtemps. Les sourcils angoisses se rapprochent; elle re-
gratte fievreusement la sciure, pietine, cherche la bonne place et pendant trois

The Tiger in the House

would a sheet of paper or sawdust tempt him. Not even “ Le
Temps” or “ Le Journal” with the revues of Catulle
Mendes. . , .

There is no one thing that cats are supposed to care more
for than heat, and it is true that a cat will seek a hearth, a cozy
wood fire, or the companionship of a kitchen stove, but it is
perfectly possible for a cat to exist in the cold. When it was
discovered that the extremely frigid temperature of the great
cold-storage plants was not sufficiently bitter to exterminate
the sturdy rats and mice some one proposed the introduction
of cats. The first felines carried into these bleak quarters
did not thrive. Some of them, indeed, perished, but a few
survived and, after a winter or two, grew an astonishing coat
of fur, as thick as that of a beaver. The kittens born in this
ice-like temperature were hardy little beasts, and it is said
that now the cold-storage cats would pant and languish with
nervous exhaustion were they exposed to a New York July day.

There is a feud between the cat and the dog, but this dis-
like is superficial and can, in most Instances, be easily set aside.
It is, to be sure, instinctive. Kittens with their eyes scarcely
open have been known to spit at a dog. But cats who live
with dogs usually do so with dignity and ease; in many cases a
deep affection springs up between the two. When Flecknoe’s
miserable old gentlewoman in his “ Enigmatical Characters ”
(1658) speaks of letting her prayer book fall into the dripping
pan and the cat and dog quarreling over it and at last agreeing
to pray on it she becomes in a sense symbolical. You may like-
wise remember that Old Mother Hubbard went to the hat-
ter’s to buy her dog a hat, “ but when she came back he was
feeding the cat.”

minutes, I’oeil fixe et sorti, semble songer aprement. Car elle est volontiers un
peu constipee. Enfin, lentement, on se relive et, avec des pricautions minutieuses,
on recouvre le cadavre, de I’air penetre qui convient d cette funebre operation.
Petit grattement superfetatoire autour du plat, et sans transition, cabriole di-
hanchee et diabolique, prelude a une danse de chevre, le pas de la delivrance.
Alors, je ris et je crie: ‘ Melie, viens changer, vite, le plat de la chattel"*

By Way of Correcting a Popular Prejudice

Mademoiselle Antoinette Therese Deshoulieres wrote a re-
markable heroic tragedy, after the manner of Corneille, the
subject of which is the passion of Madame Deshoulieres’s
cat, Grisette, for Cochon, the dog of the Due de Vivonne,
brother to Madame de Montespan. The play is called La
Mart de Cochon and all the ram-cats of Madame Deshouli-
eres’s household and the neighbourhood have gathered on a
convenient rooftop to rejoice at the news conveyed by the title,
and to express the hope that one of them may win the paw of
the perverse Grisette. That young lady, however, gives her-
self whole-heartedly to grief. In vain the Chorus of Cats
cries :

Redonnez-vous d votre espece,

Votre destin sera plus doux.

Grisette replies :

Je dots d Cochon ma tendresse.

Dussiez-vous etre encor niille fois plus jaloux,

Vous verrez d quel point pour lui je rninteresse.

The Chorus cries :

Ah cruelle chatte, arretez!

But she does not relent and disappears from the rooftop to
make way for Eros, the god in the car, who holds out the fol-
lowing hope:

Tendres matous, laissez-la-faire:

Votre infortune finira;

J’en jure par mon arc, j’en jure par ma rtiere.

La Constance est une chimere
Dont Grisette se lassera.

Through the convenient pen of Madame Deshoulieres,
Grisette and Cochon had previously penned a long correspon-
dence. It is perhaps the first literary friendship between a dog
and a cat but by no means the last. Indeed a cat prefers, in

The Tiger in the House

most cases, a dog for a companion rather than another cat.
A mother cat will suckle puppies and she has been known to
suckle rats. For rats and cats, too, can become friends, as
Theophile Gautier discovered when his dynasties of white rats
and white cats were contemporaries.^®

“ Respect of slumber,” writes S. B. Wister,-® “ is a most
curious characteristic of cats and I have often wondered if it
is the same instinct which is said to prevent lions and tigers
from attacking sleeping prey.” This is all very well, but
have cats respect for slumber? Some of them have. My
Feathers has not. She wants her breakfast at a certain hour
in the morning; if the door of my bedroom is closed she gives
little cries outside. If it is open she enters, puts her forepaws
on the edge of my bed close to my face and licks my cheek. If
I brush her away, in a few moments she is nibbling my toes. I
put an end to this and very shortly she is marching up and down,
using me as a highroad. She is equally persistent if I am tak-
ing a nap. On such occasions she often climbs high on my
breast and sleeps with me, but when she awakes she digs her
claws into my chest and stretches, quite as if I didn’t exist.
This alternate protrusion of the forepaws, with toes separated,
as if pushing against and sucking their mother’s teats, is a
favourite gesture of cats when they are pleased.

Cats make a radical distinction, naturally enough, between
their relations with human beings and their relations with
other cats. An anonymous writer quoted by Moncrif,^^ has
put this beautifully in his description of the lovely Menine of
Madame de Lesdiguieres who was

Chatte pour tout le monde, et pour les chats, tigresse.

Cats are extremely sensitive and nervous; their pulses register

W. H. Hudson relates the story of a remarkable friendship between a cat
and a rat in “The Book of a Naturalist.”

2® “ Cats and their affections”; “Temple Bar”; Vol. roy, P. 84.

21 “Les Chats”; P. 89.

THE CAT SOMETIMES MAKES STRANGE FRIENDS

From a drazviug by GrandviUe in Les Metamorphoses du Jour

«>

■F.

i-'"

1 "

I r •»

By Way of Correcting a Popular Pre]udice

i6o throbs a minute. A good-natured kitten may be worried
into becoming a bad-natured cat, or the bad characteristics of
a cat may sometimes be softened by tender treatment. I know
of an instance in which a guest handled a kitten about three
months old rather roughly. When released the kitten fled to
safety; she was not accustomed to suffering such indignities and
she resented them. Familiarity always breeds contempt in a
cat. However, once the guest had taken his departure she re-
sumed her old-time offhand manner and was as playful as pos-
sible. A year elapsed before the offending guest again ap-
peared in the circle, a year during which the kitten had grown
into cathood, but the moment the young man entered the door
she disappeared under a bed and could not be induced to come
out until he had left. Cats have long memories. Jessie Pic-
kens had a very remarkable brown tabby Persian who snarled
and growled and spit at everybody except her mistress. She
would indeed suffer no one but Jessie to come near her at all,
but for Jessie she had an excessive fondness and had even
crossed the Atlantic in her cabin seventeen times. Her
fear of strangers was due to an accident which occurred
when she was a kitten. Willy, really a great admirer of
cats and at that time the husband of Colette, than whom
no one has written more delicately and sensitively about
these little rogues in fur, was calling one day. He picked
the kitten up to play with her and tossed her up towards
the ceiling, catching her as she dropped, but a sudden twist
and puss slipped through his fingers, falling to the floor.
With a cry of terror she fled from the room and it was
only after two days that she was discovered hiding behind
some trunks in the garret. She never permitted a stranger
to touch her again. Another cat fell into a well. He
managed to keep from drowning by climbing to a small
rock and in time he was rescued, but thereafter he was com-
pletely insane; he never regained interest in life nor seemed
to have the slightest consciousness of what was going on about

The Tiger in the House

him. Lindsay has culled another example from the “ Ani-
mal World.” This cat was frightened by a peacock; a sort
of terror-mania developed, agoraphobia, perhaps, involving
an utter loss of self-possession, followed by a permanent tim-
idity that permitted the animal to feed only in his master’s
presence.

Whether they inherit these traits or whether their manners
and habits are encouraged or embarrassed by treatment, the
fact remains that there are all kinds of cats, cross and gentle,
cruel and tender, savage and tame. The curious thing is
that several kittens by the same mother brought up together
in' the same house will exhibit many differences. Gautier
describes three kittens of the same litter: “ Enjolras was

solemn, pretentious, aldermanic from his cradle; even
theatrical at times in his vast assumption of dignity. Gavroche
was a born Bohemian, enamoured of low company, and of the
careless comedies of life. Their sister Eiponine — best loved
of the three — was a delicate, fastidious little creature with an
exquisite sense of propriety, and of the refinements of social
intercourse. Enjolras was a glutton, caring for nothing so
much as his dinner. Gavroche, more generous, would bring in
from the streets gaunt and ragged cats, who devoured in a
scurry of fright the food laid aside for him. I was often
tempted to remonstrate, and to say to this little scamp, ‘ A
nice lot of friends you do pick up I ’ But I refrained. After
all, it was an amiable weakness. He might have eaten his
dinner himself.”

Madame Michelet thinks that colouring may have some-
thing to do with temperament. Black cats, according to this
femme savante, have passionate and sombre characters. The
blondes are amiable and facile, with a certain submerged smil-
ing melancholy. Those between the two extremes, neither
blonde nor brunette, have equable temperaments. These

22 “ Mind in the Lower Animals”; Vol. II, P. i86.

23 “ Les Chats.”

By Way of Correcting a Popular Prejudice

classifications of Madame Michelet will be considered
rather fantastic by any one who has known cats of different
colours.

But Diderot’s “ il y a chat et chat ” is certainly just. Some
cats are cold and haughty, imperious and ironic. Other cats
are so frank, so persistent in demanding affection, that they
almost lack mystery. There are cats who will climb on any
one and purr with delight. Catnip is vodka and whisky to
most cats, but Feathers merely sniffs at ft and walks away.
There are all varieties and kinds and sorts of cats; there are
long and short-haired cats, and Mexican cats without any hair;
there are strange Australian cats with long pointed noses ; there
are Angora and Persian and Siamese cats, and Manx cats
without any tails; there are blue, black, and white cats; there
are tortoise-shells and creams; there are orange and silver and
chinchilla cats; there are combinations of all these colours;
my Feathers is tortoise-shell and white smoke tabby queen,
with seven toes on each front paw ! Seven or six-toed cats
are by no means rare. Even in regard to the freaks of catdom
there are variations: in spite of much popular opinion to the
contrary white cats are not always deaf, tortoise-shells are not
always females, and orange tabbies are not always males.

Some pussies' coats are yellow; some amber streaked with dark;

No member of the feline race but has a special mark.

This one has feet with hoarfrost tipped; that one has tail that curls;
Another's inky hide is striped; another's decked with pearls.

Cats loom in the mind’s eye, indeed, with the heroes of
history and the characters of fiction: Zola’s roving Angora,

worsted in a street fight, and Edward Peple’s roving Angora
who does up an alley cat and returns home tired and happy;
Baudelaire’s occult cat; Lafcadio Hearn’s tortoise-shell, Tama,
who played with her dead kittens in dreams, cooing to them,
catching for them small shadowy things; Corporal Bunting’s
devilishly grim, brindled, bandit cat, Jacobina; Madame Joli-

The Tiger in the House

coeur’s cuddlesome, Shah de Perse, whose “ rare little cat tan-
trums were but as sun-spots on the effulgence of his otherwise
constant amiability Mr. Tarkington’s Gipsy, “ half broncho
and half Malay pirate”; snarling, green-eyed, grey Lady
Jane, who follows Mr. Krook about in “ Bleak House the
pious papal cats of Leo XII, Gregory XV, and Pius IX;"'*
the playful kitten companions of Richelieu; the oyster-eating
Hodge of Dr. Johnson, the bane of Boswell; Edward Lear’s
Old Foss; “ that troublesome old rip,” Hector G. Yelverton,

When Pius IX sat down to dine, his cat came in with the soup, mounted a
chair opposite him, and dumbly and decorously looked on until the pontiff had
finished his meal. Then he received his own at his master’s hands and took
leave until the same hour next day. The demise of puss alarmed the Pope’s
household, lest he should be painfully affected by the loss of his old table com-
panion, but His Holiness “ did not seem to care a bit more about it than he had
cared for the death of his secretary, the Cardinal Antonelli.”

25 The fondness of Richelieu for kittens has been generally taken for granted
and is stated as a fact in most of the books about cats. Champfleury, however,
questions the matter in a footnote: “It is surprising that Moncrif, who, not-

withstanding the jesting tone of his book, made extensive researches on the sub-
ject of cats, has not said a word about Richelieu’s passion for those animals.
Can it be that this peculiarity, attributed to a great political personage, is a
legend misapplied? ‘Everybody knows,’ says Moncrif, ‘that one of the greatest
ministers France ever possessed, M. Colbert, always had a number of kittens
playing about that same cabinet in which so many institutions, both useful and
honourable to the nation, had their origin.’ ” .

Alexandre Landrin (“Le Chat,” p. 93) writes, “With Richelieu the taste for
cats was a mania ; when he rose in the morning and when he went to bed at night
he was always surrounded by a dozen of them with which he played, delighting
to watch them jump and gamble. He had one of his chambers fitted up as a
cattery, which was entrusted to overseers, the names of whom are known.
Abel and Teyssandier came, morning and evening, to feed the cats with pates
fashioned of the white meat of chicken. At his death Richelieu left a pension
for his cats and to Abel and Teyssandier so that they might continue to care
for their charges. When he died Richelieu left fourteen cats of which the names
were: Mounard le Fougueux, Soumise, Serpolet, Gazette, Ludovic le Cruel, Mimie
Piaillon, Feliraare, Lucifer, Lodoi'ska, Rubis sur I’Ongle, Pyrame, Thisbe, Racan,
and Perruque. These last two received their names from the fact that they were
born in the wig of Racan, the academician.”

Gaston Percheron (“Le Chat,” p. 19) writes, “History records that Richelieu
with one hand caressed a family of cats which played on his knees, while with
the other he signed the order for the execution of Cinq-Mars.”

By JVay of Correcting a Popular Prejudice

“with no more principle than an injun”; Mr. Garnett’s in-
domitable queen, of whom has been written:

And all the TomSj though never so bold.

Quailed at the martial Marigold.

The esoteric procession continues to pass in front of me:
Scheffel’s philosophical and lyrical Tom Cat, Hiddigeigei, of
sable coat and majestic tail; Hamilcar,^® the cat of Sylvestre
Bonnard, who combined in his personality the formidable
aspect of a Tartar chief with the heavy grace of an odalisque;
John F. Runciman’s Felix-Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Shedlock-
Runciman-Felinis, who spit at hansoms at the age of six
months and later attempted to play the viola-alta by trailing
the bow across the floor, and his Minnie who used to put dogs
to rout and died of eating needles; the charming Kallikrates
of W. L. George’s “ Blind Alley’’; Tieck’s prodigiously de-
lightful Hinze; Alexandre Dumas’s clairvoyant Mysouff, who
once ate a 500 franc breakfast; the terrible one-eyed Pluto
of Poe’s story and the one-eyed Wotan, Kraft’s cat in
“Maurice Guest’’; Mr. Warner’s sage Calvin and Mark
Twain’s Tom Quartz, who objected to quartz mining; Agnes
Repplier’s Agrippina and Lux; John Silence’s psychic cat.
Smoke, who loved to rub up against the legs of spirits; the
gamine cat, Fanchette, of the adorable Claudine; Dr. Nicola’s
eschatological cat, Apollyon, who was privy to the mysteries
of cartomancy; Dickens’s Williamina (first named William) ;
Southey’s Rumpel, “ the Most Noble the Archduke Rumpel-
stiltzchen, Marcus Macbum, Earl Tomlefnagne, Baron Rati-
cide, Waowhler and Scratch”; Chateaubriand’s greyish red
Micetto, the gift of a Pope; Tom Hood’s Tabitha Longclaws

Hamilcar was Anatole France’s own cat. After his death he was succeeded
by a cat named Pascal by France’s cook, who had overheard a luncheon con-
versation about the French philosopher. Pascal was a stray cat who wandered
in from the streets, liked the “ city of books,” and decided to remain. He al-
ways maintained his independence, and sometimes went away for a week at a
time.

The Tiger in the House

Tiddleywink and her three kittens, Pepperpot, Scratchaway,
and Sootikins; the black cat of Fray Inocencio called Timoteo,
a name “ bestowed upon him for the reason that this is a name
well suited to a cat, and also in derisive reprobation of that
schismatic monophysite of Egypt, who in the fifth century
usurped the Patriarchate, and was known popularly as
‘Timothy the Cat.’”; later this puss was called Susurro,^^
which in Spanish signifies Purrer; Sandy Jenkins’s hoodoo cat,
Mesmerizer ; Theophile Gautier’s Madame Theophile, who
delighted in perfumes and music, India shawls lifted from
boxes of sandalwood, and faint aromatic odours of the East;
Victor Hugo’s Chanoine and Sir Walter Scott’s Hinse; Pierre
Loti’s M'oumoutte Blanche and Moumoutte Chinoise; the
wicked Rutterkin of ways mephitic; and Rosamund Marriot
Watson’s Egyptian cat desired by Arsinoe :

A little lion, small and dainty sweet
{For such there be!)

With sea-grey eyes and softly stepping feet.

On strings the solemn march:

Les chats prudents, les chats silencieux,

Promenant leur beaute, leur grace et leur mystere,

“ furred serpents,” “ green-eyed Venuses,” the “ house-ani-
mal,” the ” fireside sphinx,” “ rat-eater,” “ mouse-enemy,”
the “ panther of the hearth,” “ cats ... of titles obsolete or
yet in use, Tom, Tybert, Roger, Rutterkin, or Puss,”

Calumnious cats, who circulate faux pas.

And reputations maul with murderous claws;

Shrill cats, whom fierce domestic brawls delight.

Cross cats, who nothing want but teeth to bite.

Starch cats of puritanic aspect sad.

And learned cats who talk their husbands mad;
*****

Asura, the ancient Aryan name for deity, signifies the breather.

By Way of Correcting a Popular Prejudice

Uncleanly cats who never pare their nails,

Cat-gossips, full of Canterbury tales;

Cat-grandams, vex'd with asthmas and catarrhs.

And superstitious cats, who curse their stars.

Chapter ’Two: Treating of Traits

Now that I have, perhaps, convinced the reader that cats
have character, it is time to assert with equal positiveness that
cats have characteristics. No cat-lover would be willing to
deny this, for the characteristics of the cat are what make her
generally beloved. Many of these traits are born of feral
habits, hundreds and even thousands of years old. The
dog is an animal who in the wild state travels in packs;
he follows his leader in hunting expeditions. In the do-
mestic state he transfers this allegiance from his leader
to his master, for man is literally the master of the dog,
as he is of the horse and the ass, and as he has been
of the maid-servant. The cat on the other hand, in
the wild state hunted and lived alone; he retains the inde-
pendent habits of such a condition. Observe, for instance,
a dog eating: if a man or another dog approaches him
he will growl. He has a racial memory of fighting for the
best food and it is his instinct to bolt it down before it can be
taken away from him. A cat, ordinarily (there are excep-
tions, as I have previously pointed out), displays no such
trepidation. Accustomed as a wild animal to eating alone in
tranquillity, as a domestic he usually eats slowly and with de-
corum, having no instinctive fear that his food will be stolen.

Similarly a cat’s regard for his person is acutely traceable
to a memory of life in the forest and plain. A cat does not
chase his prey as a dog does; he can run swiftly for a short
distance, but running is not his specialty. He lies in wait for
his quarry and pounces upon it suddenly. Now some of the ani-
mals of which the cat is most fond for food, notably the mouse,
have a keener sense of smell than their enemy; It is therefore

Treating of Traits

essential for the good mouser to be devoid of odour. Conse-
quently he washes and rewashes his fur and trims his whiskers
to the last speck. “ The love of dress is very marked in this
attractive animal,” writes Champfleury; “ he is proud of the
lustre of his coat, and cannot endure that a hair of it shall lie
the wrong way. When the cat has eaten, he passes his tongue
several times over both sides of his jaws, and his whiskers, in
order to clean them thoroughly; he keeps his coat clean with
a prickly tongue which fulfills the office of a curry-comb; but
as, notwithstanding its suppleness, it is difficult for the cat to
reach the upper part of his head with the tongue; he makes use
of his paw, moistened with saliva, to polish that portion.”
Hippolyte Taine has written a charming description of the
operation :

His tongue is sponge, and brush, and towel, and curry-comb,

IV ell he knows what work it can be made to do.

Poor little wash-rag, smaller than my thumb.

His nose touches his back, touches his hind paws too.

Every patch of fur is raked, and scraped, and smoothed;

What more has Goethe done, what more could Voltaire dof

A similar instinct induces the cat to bury his offal, an instinct
which leads him to do a deal of scratching in the domestic pan.

Louis Robinson ^ has expressed an interesting and credible
theory to the effect that even the cat’s colouring and the habit
of hissing or spitting are protective mimicry. The most ag-
gressive enemy of the cat in the wild state is the eagle. Now
it is known that all animals (save perhaps the cat!) fear
snakes. Tabby markings are the most common coloration in
felines. If you observe a tabby cat rolled up asleep with his
head in the centre of the coil you may note that he bears a
very fair resemblance to a coiled serpent, quite enough resem-
blance to deceive an eagle in the air. Again, suppose a cat has

i“WiId Traits in Tame Animals.”

The Tiger in the House

Loncealed her kittens In a hollow tree. At the approach of an
enemy they begin to spit, and this spitting sounds very much
like the hissing of a snake. No fox will stick his nose into the
dark hollow of a tree from which hisses are ejected.

The cat is an anarchist, while the dog is a socialist. He Is
an aristocratic, tyrannical anarchist, at that.

So Tiberius might have sat,

Had Tiberius been a cat,

wrote Matthew Arnold in a moment of wise inspiration. He
prefers delicate textures, rich foods, and the best of every-
thing.^ “ It, is necessary to say that if the cat holds a big
place In the household It is not alone by his graces of spoiled
child, his loving calineries, and the seductive abandon of his
lovely Indolence; more than anything It is because he demands
so much. His personality is strong, his awakenings and his
wishes impatient. He refuses to wait. Under his supple
grace his gesture Is one of insistence and command. You de-
fend yourself In vain, he Is master and you yield.” Thus has
written Madame Michelet,-"* of whom her husband, the good
Jules, once retorted to her boast that she had owned a hundred
cats, “ Rather a hundred cats have owned you ! ” A writer In
the “Spectator”^ describes a typical cat: “We have seen

a tabby with a black muzzle who, for cold, calculated, and yet

2 “ It is odd that cats show an intense dislike to anything destined or set apart
for them. Mentu had a basket of his own, and a cushion made by a fond mis-
tress, but to put him into it was to make him bound out like an india-rubber ball.
He liked to occupy proper chairs and sofas, or even proper hearthrugs. In the
same way, the well-bred cat has an inconvenient but aesthetic preference for
eating its food in pleasant places, even as we consume chilly tea and dusty
bread and butter in a summer glade. A plate is distasteful to a cat, a news-
paper still worse; they like to eat sticky pieces of meat sitting on a cushioned
chair or a nice Persian rug. Yet if these were dedicated to this use they would
remove elsewhere. Hence the controversy is interminable.” Margaret Benson
in “ The Soul of a Cat.”

3 “ Les Chats,” p. 17.

4 “The Cat as Unconscious Humorist” in “The Spectator”: August 2, 1890.

THIS BROWN TABBY SHORT-HAIRED CAT IS NAMED MARY GARDEN
From a copyright photograph by Harriet V. Furness

Treating of Traits

perfectly well-bred Insolence, could have given points to a
spiteful dowager duchess whose daughter-in-law ‘ wasn’t one of
us, you know.’ The heartless and deliberate rudeness of that
cat’s behaviour on occasion would, had she been a man, have
unquestionably justified shooting at sight. The courtiers In
the most slavish palace in the East would have rebelled had
they received the treatment she meted out daily to those who
waited on her hand and foot. After a devoted admirer had
hunted breathless and bare-headed over a large garden, and
under a blazing July sun, lest puss should lose her dinner, and
had at last brought her Into the dining-room In his arms, that
cat, instead of showing gratitude, and instead of running with
pleasure to the plate prepared for her, has been known to sit
bolt upright at the other end of the room, regarding the whole
table with a look of undisguised contempt, her eyes super-
ciliously half-shut and a tiny speck of red tongue protruding
between her teeth. If the thing had not been so exceedingly
well done It would have been simply vulgar; as it was it
amounted to the most exasperating form of genteel brutality
Imaginable. The company having been at last thoroughly
stared out of countenance and put down by this monstrous ex-
hibition of Intentional rudeness, the cat In question slowly rose
to her feet, and digging her claws well into the carpet,
stretched and balanced herself, while yawning at the same time
with lazy self-satisfaction. After this she proceeded by the
most circuitous route obtainable to the plate put before her,
evidently intending it to be clearly understood that she held
Its presence under the side-board to be due In some way or
other to her own skill and forethought, and that she in no
sense regarded herself as beholden to any other person.” The
cat Is the only animal that lives with man on terms of equality,
nay superiority. He willingly domesticates himself but on his
own conditions and never gives up his complete liberty no mat-
ter how closely he Is confined. He preserves his Independence
In this unequal struggle even at the cost of his life. A common

The Tiger in the House

tom cat, living on the domestic hearth, on the best of footings
with the family, visits the rooftops and the fences, becomes a
leading figure at prize-fights, negotiates his amours on a lavish
scale, and otherwise conducts himself when he Is away from
the house exactly as he would in the Incult state. Indeed,
when he is thrown on his own resources, as frequently happens
both In town and country, he is perfectly capable of taking care
of himself and adjusts himself to the new conditions without a
moment’s hesitation. This characteristic is admirably illus-
trated in a story by Charles G. D. Roberts,® a story founded
on a true Incident. A dog In a similar predicament would be
entirely helpless; the dog, indeed. In submitting to slavery, has
entirely lost the power to take care of himself when occasion
arises.

It has amused Mr. Booth Tarkington, and his readers will
share this jocund emotion, to paint a picture of such a cat,® a
prodigious lanky beast who has forsaken the comforts of the
fireside and the affections of a little girl for the pleasures of
wild life and the chase. He had been a roly-poly, pepper-and-
salt kitten, named Gipsy, a name to which In his subsequent
career he gave real meaning. Early In youth he began to
dissipate and was wont to join rowdy alley cats In their mid-
night maraudings. His taste for a fast life increased with
age and one night, carrying the evening beefsteak with him,
he joined the underworld.

“ His extraordinary size, his daring, and his utter lack of
sympathy soon made him the leader — and, at the same time,
the terror — of all the loose-lived cats in a wide neighbour-
hood. He contracted no friendships and had no confidents.
He seldom slept in the same place twice in succession, and
though he was wanted by the police, he was not found. In
appearance he did not lack distinction of an ominous sort;
the slow, rhythmic, perfectly controlled mechanism of his

® “ How a cat played Robinson Crusoe” in “Neighbours Unknown,” p. 175.

® “ Penrod and Sam,” Chapter XII.

Treating of Traits

tail, as he impressively walked abroad, was incomparably
sinister. This stately and dangerous walk of his, his long,
vibrant whiskers, his scars, his yellow eye, so ice-cold, so fire-
hot, haughty as the eye of Satan, gave him the deadly air of a
mousquetaire duelist. His soul was in that walk and in that
eye; it could be read — the soul of a bravo of fortune, living
on his wits and his valour, asking no favours and granting no
quarter. Intolerant, proud, sullen, yet watchful and con-
stantly planning — purely a militarist, believing in slaughter as
in religion, and confident that art, science, poetry, and the good
of the world were happily advanced thereby — Gipsy had be-
come, though technically not a wild cat, undoubtedly the most
untamed cat at large in the civilized world.”

The cat whose portrait Mr. Tarkington has painted in these
few brilliant strokes, discovers the back-bone of a three-pound
white-fish lying within a few inches of the nose of Penrod’s
old dog, Duke, and Duke awakens to the terrifying spectacle
of the cat, bearing the fishbone in his horrid jaws. “ Out
from one side of his head, and mingling with his whiskers,
projected the long, spiked spine of the big fish; down from the
other side of that ferocious head dangled the fish’s tail, and
from above the remarkable effect thus produced shot the in-
tolerable glare of two yellow eyes. To the gaze of Duke, still
blurred by slumber, this monstrosity was all of one piece — the
bone seemed a living part of it.” Duke gave a shriek of
terror and the massacre began. Gipsy, too, sounded his war-
cry, “ the subterranean diapason of a demoniac bass viol.”
Then, “ never releasing the fishbone for an instant, he laid
back his ears in a chilling way, beginning to shrink into him-
self like a concertina, but rising amidships so high that he ap-
peared to be giving an imitation of that peaceful beast, the
dromedary. Such was not his purpose, however, for having
attained his greatest possible altitude, he partially sat down
and elevated his right arm after the manner of a semaphore.
This semaphore arm remained rigid for a second, threatening;

The Tiger in the House

then it vibrated with inconceivable rapidity, feinting. But it
was the treacherous left that did the work. Seemingly this
left gave Duke three lightning little pats upon the left ear, but
the change in his voice indicated that these were no love-taps.
He yelled, ‘help!’ and ‘bloody murder!’ . . . Gipsy pos-
sessed a vocabulary for cat-swearing certainly second to none
out of Italy, and probably equal to the best there.” Presently,
this time with his right paw, he drew blood from Duke’s nose,
but on the approach of Penrod he saw fit to retire, not out of
fear, Mr. Tarkington explains, but probably because he could
not spit without dropping the fishbone, and, “ as all cats of
the slightest pretensions to technique perfectly understand, this
can neither be well done nor produce the best effects unless the
mouth be opened to its utmost capacity so as to expose the
beginnings of the alimentary canal.”

Gipsy should not be regarded as a curious exception in the
feline world. The cat, indeed, is the only animal without
visible means of support who still manages to find a living in
the city. I do not mean to say that all cats do. Both in the
city and in the country cats without homes, and even cats with
homes, are largely at the mercy of a great many enemies, both
aggressive and accidental. The wicked small boy, the automo-
bile, the dog, the tram-car, the rabbit-trap, all quickly put an
end to many superfluous pussies’ lives, but it is equally certain
that the number of apparently unprovided-for cats who live
wild lives in both city and country is very large indeed. Some
of the males become enormous, fat and sleek, living on the
contents of stray ashcans, occasionally stealing better food
through an open window, catching mice in warehouses and
sparrows In parks. Even the females manage somehow not
only to care for themselves but also to bring up families.'^

The cat’s ability to leap and climb gives him a marked advantage both in
hunting and escaping from his enemies. It is a curious fact, however, that cats
who climb to considerable heights frequently refuse to descend from more
modest ones. A cat in a tree, whither he has fled from a dog, or in a second
storey window, yowling piteously, is no uncommon sight. Sometimes the rescue

Treating of Traits

Water alone Is sometimes difficult or Impossible to procure,
but cats can do without water for several days, the blood auto-
matically thickening. One very hot August Sunday afternoon
walking up Fifth Avenue I observed a large orange tabby tom
rubbing himself against a hydrant and mewing. I stopped to
speak with him, as is my custom with cats, when an Irish police-
man approached. “ I believe he wants a drink,” suggested
this very intelligent officer. “ He’s noticed that water some-
times comes from that hydrant.” ” I think you are right,”
I replied. “ Let’s get him one.” Now a cat will not take
an excursion merely because a man wants a walking com-
panion. Walking is a human habit into which dogs readily
fall but it is a distasteful form of exercise to a cat unless he
has a purpose in view. I have never known a cat with a
purpose In view to refuse a walk. This case was no exception.
The orange tabby was a complete stranger to both the police-
man and myself and yet when we suggested a little drink he
walked peaceably a little way behind us as we strolled down
Fifth Avenue. “ I think Page and Shaw’s is open,” said the
policeman. Now Page and Shaw’s was three blocks below
the hydrant and yet that cat followed at our heels. When
we arrived at the shop I asked Tom to sit down for a moment;
the policeman went in and presently emerged with a paper cup
full of water. Tom drank every bit of this and then asked
for more. He had another cup. Then, having no further
use for us, without a word or gesture he trotted off.

An ingenious friend of Louis Robinson suggested to him
that cats may look upon man as “ a kind of locomotive tree,
pleasant to rub against, the lower limbs of which afford a com-
fortable seat, and from whose upper branches occasionally

of such a cat becomes an international matter. It has even been found expedient,
on occasion, to call out the fire department. It should be remembered that a fall
from any considerable height is a serious matter for a cat. In spite of the popu-
lar superstition that he always lights on his feet, he is quite likely to break his
spine.

The Tiger in the House

drop tid-bits of mutton and other luscious fruit.” ® There is
a good deal to be said for this theory. However cats have
been known to give a more complete affection. Most cats
are ready with very friendly morning greetings but there is
even a certain reserve in these attentions, a reserve which in-
creases as the day lengthens. There is none of the excessive
cataglottism indulged in by canines. Cats only give affection
where it is deserved, except sometimes through sheer per-
versity when they annoy an ailurophobe with their attentions.
Return good for evil is not in the cat’s book of rules. To a
person deserving of their friendship, however, they occasion-
ally pour out a really deep and beautiful affection. This is
slow in growing and may be easily interrupted. Cats will not

tolerate rough handling, beating, or teasing. They dislike

exceedingly to be laughed at. A seeker of a cat’s affection
must therefore proceed with care; in time he may receive some
of the benefits due him, but, if he offends his cat friend, the
work of the past is all undone. Cats seldom make mistakes
and they never make the same mistake twice. How stupid
a cat must think a human being who is constantly repeating the
same errors ! A cat can be duped but once in his life ® as

® The following curious description of the cat from Edward Topsell’s “ History
of Four-footed Beasts” (1658) is interesting enough to quote: “It is needless

to spend any time over her loving nature to man, how she flattereth by rubbing
her skin against one’s legs, how she whurleth with her voice, having as many
tunes as turnes, for she hath one voice to beg and to complain, another to testify
her delight and pleasure, another among her own kind by flattering, by hissing,
by puffing, by spitting, in so much that some have thought that they have a
peculiar intelligible language among themselves. Therefore how she playeth,
leapeth, looketh, catcheth, tosseth with her foot, riseth up to strings held over her
head, sometimes creeping, sometimes lying on the back, playing with foot, appre-
hending greedily anything save the hand of a man, with divers such gestical
actions, it is needless to stand upon; in so much as Collins was wont to say, that
being free from his studies and more urgent weighty affairs, he was not ashamed
to play and sport himself with his cat, and verily it may be called an idle man’s
pastime.”

® An incident described by Louis de Grammont is typical of the cat’s instinct in
this respect; A friend of mine occupied a house in which gas was used for
cooking. He had a cat which at the period of which I write was the mother of

Treating of Traits

there is plenty of proverbial evidence to prove. The cele-
brated affair of the cat and the chestnuts is the only historic or
fabulous occasion on which the cat has been fooled.

Cats can be, most of them are, very cruel, but I think that
George J. Romanes’s assumption that they torture mice
simply for torture’s sake is wholly unjustifiable. Occasionally
this may be true. The Reverend J. G. Wood’s remarkable
cat, Pret, had a habit of carrying his trembling and terrified
mouse quite alive to the very top of the five-storey house in
which she resided and then dropping it down the well in the
centre of the circular staircase and watching results with eager
eyes from between the banisters. “ But the fact remains that
if a cat is going to keep himself in any kind of hunting condi-
tion a certain amount of practice is necessary and practice on a
live animal is better practice than practice with a ball or a piece
of paper with which the kitten takes his first lessons in pounc-
ing on prey.^^ Some mother cats, indeed, have been known
to keep hunting preserves of slightly wounded animals, released

two half-grown kittens. At dinner these cats, very badly bred, had the habit of
jumping on the table and helping themselves to such morsels as they could se-
cure. One day at luncheon the cats were on the table as usual when the servant
brought in the cutlets. At the same instant there was an explosion. Upon in-
quiry it was discovered that the cook had been careless and that there had been
a slight explosion of gas. No one was injured and everybody took his place
again at the table except the cats who, thoroughly frightened, had disappeared.
They did not come back, indeed, for several days. When they finally returned
their fear was gone and they resumed their former habits. But some weeks
later, when the maid again brought cutlets to the table, they fled at once. They
had connected the explosion with the appearance of cutlets!

Animal Intelligence.”

“ Glimpses into Petland,” p. 30.

12 Madame Michelet is not of the opinion that all of the play of the kitten is
an apprenticeship for the chase (“Les Chats,” p. 48): “A world of ideas, of

images awake first in him, which are not images of prey. That will come to
him, but later. The first attraction for him, as for a baby, is the thing that
moves. It seems that this life of objects deceives their immobility. Both follow
these movements with an eye at first uncertain, but soon they are captivated.
The infant wishes to seize the ball suspended to the cradle and the kitten in the
evening pursues his shadow. Tigrine showed a very lively taste for these sil-
houettes, which assumed in her eyes more reality than the object itself.”

The Tiger in the House

on occasion for their kittens to play with. This instinct, too,
accounts for the seemingly needless slaughter indulged in by
some cat-hunters, who kill and bring in eight or ten times as
much game as they consume. It may also be true that some
cats carry the love of hunting far beyond necessity; there is
reason to suppose, indeed, that some cats love hunting as much
as Theodore Roosevelt loved it, and why, in the name of all
that is just, should they not love it? There are those who
protest against the killing of wild life by cats who see no evil
in leading tame lambs and calves to the slaughter, who enjoy
eating lobsters that have been boiled alive, who wear on their
hats aigrettes torn from the breasts of live nesting birds,
who send cows on long sickening ocean journeys crowded so
closely together that they can scarcely lie down, or pack
chickens in crates so tightly that they cannot move. People
who go fox-hunting three times a week in the season object
to a cat torturing a mouse. Even owners of factories em-
ploying child labour and dramatic critics have told me that cats
are cruel. Now a cat, like a man, is a carnivorous animal; he
is even more so than a man, for a healthy cat must have animal
food while a healthy man {vide Bernard Shaw) may subsist
entirely on fruits and nuts. He is therefore following a
natural instinct in killing birds and mice and he Is keeping
himself In training when he subjects his captures to a certain
amount of torture. “ But cats resemble tigers? They are
tigers in miniature? Well, — and very pretty miniatures they
are,” writes Leigh Hunt. “ And what has the tiger himself
done, that he has not a right to eat his dinner, as well as Jones ?
. . . Deprive Jones of his dinner for a day or two and see
what a state he will be In.” Of course, one may bell the cat,
which simply means to tie a loud sounding bell around puss’s
neck. Then as he runs or springs the bell warns the bird to
fly away. Unfortunately for the success of this expedient an

But they see no harm in teaching dogs to hunt. The crime of the cat is
that he does his own hunting instead of man’s.

THE CAT AND THE FROG

From a drawing by Steinlen in Des Chats

Treating of Traits

intelligent cat who is also an obstinate hunter will soon learn to
hold the bell under his chin in such a manner that it will not
ring.

Cats, of course, are determined fighters, but these fights
are like the romantic combats of chivalry, or the brabbles of
the apaches of modern Paris: they are broils over the female
of the species. For the cat is a great lover. The amount of
amorous instinct in a healthy full-grown tom can scarcely be
overestimated. And any attempt at holding this instinct in
check, short of castration, is usually frustrated. As Remy
de Gourmont has pointed out, chastity is a quixotic ideal
towards which only man in the animal kingdom strives. It
is impossible even to keep a silky Angora, whose ancestors
have all been housebred, sequestered for any length of time
unless he has become a neuter. Any one who tries it will be
delighted, after a week or so, to let tom have his own way.^^
But it has become the general custom, except for those who
keep kings for breeding purposes, to alter these toms, so that
they grow into large, affectionate, and lazy animals, who sleep
a good deal, eat a good deal, and are generally picturesque but
not very active. These altered toms are generally the favour-
ites as pets. Personally I am more interested in cats who
retain their natural fervour.

The females fight occasionally, especially in the protection
of their young, and when they are calling (so their period of
heat is poetically and literally described, for it is marked by
little amorous coos, almost like the tender sighs of an
eighteenth century lover) , with an effrontery born of desire,
they bite the males in the throat, usually with satisfactory re-

In the Middle Ages it was the custom to attach cats outside the windows of
remarried widows in reference to the lubricity of the animal. The cat is op-
posed to marriage. She will accept one lover, two lovers, three lovers, as many
slaves as possible, but never a tyrant.

The vocabulary of the professional cat-breeder is generally poetic. When
a female cat is sent to a male the event is called a “ visit ” and the male’s act
is called “ signing.”

The Tiger in the House

suits. The males are formidable fighters both with their own
species and with other animals. They do not usually fight
dogs unless they are driven into corners but cats have been
known to gratuitously attack dogs. Their sharp claws and
their supple joints, kept constantly in condition by applying
the claws to a tree or a chair or a table or a rug and pulling
and stretching, are very effective in warfare, an effectiveness
that is increased by powerful jaws and sharp teeth. It is the
habit of the cat when fighting to lie on his back, if possible,
thus bringing all his best talents into full play and protecting
his spine, his most vulnerable spot. When a cat attacks a
dog he usually jumps on the dog’s back and is able to cling and
at the same time tear at the beast’s head and eyes. Nature,
ironic, as usual, allows the eagle this procedure with the cat.
Cats frequently emerge unscathed from the most bloody
frays, save for a torn ear or a scarred tail, for the skin of the
feline is so loose that it can be pulled almost half way around
the body without tearing and the lateral movements of the
head, while not as extensive as those of the owl, are neverthe-
less considerable.

When the cat is fighting or in danger, he usually emits the
most blood-curdling yowls; why, is a mystery, for these are
not calls for assistance as the animal fighting in the wild state
is usually alone and in no case can he depend on receiving help
from others of his kind. These yowls may very well be battle
cries, like the fife and drum corps of the army, to keep up the
morale! When a cat is beaten or mistreated, however, he
never cries, although he may growl or spit.

“ Cats dread death terribly,” writes Andrew Lang. “ I
had a nefarious old cat. Gyp, who used to open the cupboard
door and eat any biscuits accessible. Gyp had a stroke of
paralysis, and believed he was going to die. He was in a
fright: Mr. Horace Hutchinson observed him and said that

this cat justly entertained the most Calvinistic apprehensions
of his future reward. Gyp was nursed back into health, as

Treating of Traits

was proved when we found him on the roof of an outhouse
with a cold chicken in his possession. Nothing could be more
human.”

The cat has been called a thief. To be sure, he has no re-
spect whatever for other people’s property, although he can
be taught to keep off a dinner-table while he is being watched.
It is easier to teach a cat not to do things than to do them.
When he is left alone, however, it is best to lock up the fish and
the cream. There are proverbs to this effect and they have
the ring of truth. Ariel used to hide spools, keys, pens, pen-
cils, and scissors under rugs. She saw no more reason why she
should not make such booty her own than the early settlers of
America saw any reason why they should not convert aborigi-
nal property to their uses. These early settlers looked upon
the Indians as inferiors who had no rights, and the cat looks
upon man in the same way.

But Walt Whitman was wrong when he said of the animals,
“ not one is demented with the mania of owning things.” As
far as their own property is concerned cats have a very definite
sense of property rights, rights, however, which they protect
themselves; they never call in the police or the militia.
Evidence of this trait is very easy to collect. All cats
understand it thoroughly, so thoroughly, indeed, that only a
very hungry or a very daring cat will attempt to slink through
an open door into the home of another cat. In case he does
so he proceeds warily and if he goes very far there is usually
a scrimmage. A scene of this kind is frequently very comic.
The master of the hearth crouches very low watching every
move of the intruder while his hair begins to bristle. The
stranger enters obliquely and appears to be unconscious of the
presence of the cat who belongs in the house. Usually a few
warning spits and passes of the paw from the insulted house-
holder terrify the interloper into taking his departure. Oc-
casionally, however, cats with charitable instincts bring In
stray animals to share their food. I have already mentioned

The Tiger in the House

Gautier’s Enjolras. I have been told of a tramp cat, fed once
at a farm-house, who returned the next day with twenty-nine
of his friends 1 But such interest in outsiders is rare in felines;
they have been accustomed to rule over their solitary hunting
ground in the wild state and the instinct survives.

Persian cats share it. Not long ago I brought home a little
orange kitten as gentle and sweet as possible, a little model of
quaint dignity and grace. The annoyance and anger of my
Feathers, the established queen of the household, showed itself
immediately with sundry growls and spits. A dog will almost
always exhibit signs of jealousy in the presence of a newcomer,
but this emotion was downright rage. Rage that any one
should dare attempt to usurp a part of her life, share her food,
sit on her cushions, slink into her places in the sun. So, with
that persistent patience which is as effective as inquisitional
methods. Feathers set about converting me to the idea that
the thing was impossible. For three days she made the
kitten’s life a grievous burden. Did the kitten try to sleep.
Feathers bit his tail; was he awake. Feathers would stare at
him disconcertingly, then with a bound over his back light on
the other side, a terrifying procedure punctuated with a growl
and a spit, calculated to send chills down stouter spines. She
followed the kitten from room to room, never permitting him
peace or quiet or any assurance of a foothold in the apartment.
More than this. Feathers altered completely in her relations
with me. Ordinarily a gentle cat, during the kitten’s brief
sojourn she never permitted me to pick her up or to become
familiar with her in any way. She bit, she scratched, she
arched her back, and she bristled her hairs. Indeed I never
went near her during those three days without being spit at.
Hectic home life is something I do not crave; I bowed to the
inevitable and bore the orange kitten away. Immediately
Feathers became all smiles and caresses, a changed and de-
lighted being.^®

i®Cats often consider certain chairs as their property and they will allow

MRS. CTTANNTNG POLLOCK’S OSIRIS RESENTS AN INVASION
From a photograt>h by Paul Thompson

V-

Treating of Traits

This quality in cats, this incessant potentiality of a return
to feral conditions, is very puzzling to those who have no feel-
ing for or understanding of these animals. It is usually called
“ bad temper ” and out of it has grown the legend that “ you
cannot trust cats.” As a matter of fact no animal is so sure
to react in certain ways to certain phenomena as the cat.^^ He
is fond of his home and its surroundings, regards them with
pride and delight. How would you, reader, care to have a
stronger (of either sex) suddenly foisted on you to share your
bed and board? Do you think it unreasonable for a cat to
protest against so great an attack on personal liberty? You
would not like it; neither does the cat. But the cat being more
independent, more assertive, more liberty loving, than that
sneaking cowardly animal called man, refuses absolutely to tol-
erate encroachments on his individuality. A man quite conceiv-
ably would put up with the inconvenience; in fact, often does.

This dual personality, with its lights and shades, is in a
great measure an explanation of the great power of fascination
the cat possesses. There is always the possibility of a rever-
sion to the wild state. The sight of a fly or a cockroach, a rat
or a mouse, another cat or dog, will make a wild beast out of
a tame animal in a quarter of a second. Moreover, if Fate
and Nature so rule, it is entirely possible for the cat to live
either existence for extended periods of time. And it must
always be remembered that a cat’s relations with man, whom
he usually regards with a certain amused contempt, are on an
entirely different plane from his relations with cats or any
other animals.

neither dogs nor human beings to occupy them. I have observed a cat, in a
household which he ruled, make the round of the drawing-room, driving each
occupant out of his chair. His method was a simple one. He weighed twelve
pounds and he insinuated himself between the person seated and the back of the
chair.

A well-treated cat will never scratch a friend, except accidentally in play,
or under the nervous strain of a supreme insult, and a friend will never insult
a cat.

The Tiger in the House

The cat’s love for places has been exaggerated by unintelli-
gent persons, who are constantly making remarks about an
animal that even the most intelligent of us does not begin to
understand. This love of home is regarded as a highly moral
and generally satisfactory trait in man, especially when it takes
the general form of patriotism. But somehow it is entirely
different for a cat to love his home; once he does so he is re-
garded with horror by tbe populace. The question, like that
of the relative merits of cats and dogs, has become an inter-
national one and is invariably introduced as a subtopic in any
lay conversation about cats. “ But the home,” Madame
Michelet points out, “ is often an assemblage of objects which
belong to your habits, which are even you, yourself. , . . The
cat is essentially conservative in his habits. However it is
less to the walls of the house that he clings than to a certain
arrangement of objects, of furniture, which bear more than
the house itself the trace of personality. So our actual life,
our facility of locomotion, the varied circumstances and the
inconstant tastes which render us today so fluid, are highly
antipathetic to the cat.” A poet in “ The Spectator ” has it:

You Jiold your race traditions fast,

While others toil, you simply live.

And based upon a stable past.

Remain a sound conservative.

The cat thinks what has been will be. As he waits for his
prey he waits for his master. He learns all the ways of escape
from danger in his house, finds his favourite chair to sleep in,
his familiar nook to lurk in; he does not relinquish these
sureties without a certain objection. Indeed in a case where a
cat has not formed an attachment for any member of the
family it seems absurd to ask him to give up these advantages.
The cat becomes attached to his master when that one caresses
him, feeds him, and loves him. But when he is largely ig-

“ Les Chats,” p. 79.

Treating of Traits

nored he becomes more attached to the house itself than he
does to its inmates. . . . Above all else it must be remem-
bered that the cat loves order.

In “ A Story Teller’s Holiday,” George Moore tells how,
wandering about the ruins of Dublin after the Irish rebellion,
he discovered a broken wall to which a mantelpiece still clung.
” A plaintive miaw reached me, and a beautiful black Persian
cat appeared by the fireplace. A cat is almost articulate, and
Tom asked me to explain the meaning of all this ruin. He has
found his old fireplace, I said, and tried to entice him; but,
though pleased to see me, he would not be persuaded to leave
v/hat remained of the hearth on which he had spent so many
pleasant hours, and pondering on his faithfulness and his
beauty I continued my search among the ruins, meeting cats
everywhere, all seeking their lost homes among the ashes and
all unable to comprehend the misfortune that had befallen
them. It is true that the cats suffer vaguely, but suffering is
not less because it is vague, and it seemed to me that in the
early ages of the world, shall we say twenty thousand years
before Pompeii and Herculaneum, men groped and suffered
blindly amid incomprehensible earthquakes seeking their lost
homes, just like the cats in Henry Street. We are part and
parcel of the same original substance, I said, and then my
thoughts breaking off suddenly, I began to rejoice in Nature’s
unexpectedness and fecundity. She is never commonplace in
her stories, we have only to go to her to be original, I mut-
tered, as I returned through the silent streets. I could have
imagined everything else, the wall-paper, the overmantel, and
the French clock, but not the cats seeking for their lost hearths,
nor is it likely that Turgenieff could, Balzac still less.”

But some cats have no aversion to moving. Some cats, in-
deed, move of their own accord as did Guy Wetmore Carryl’s
capricious Zut, described further along in this volume. An-
drew Lang felt that there was a mystic free-masonry, a sort of
Rosicrucian brotherhood among cats, so strange are their move"

The Tiger^ in the House

merits, so inexplicable. It is possible that boredom is some-
times a motive for a peregrination. “ Monotony,” writes
Lindsay,^® “ as a factor of mental derangement in the lower
animals, is closely associated with, and usually inseparable
from, solitude and captivity. Other animals dislike monot-
onous lives and occupations as much as man does; they suffer
as much as he from want of novelty and variety; they have the
same desire for amusement; there is equal necessity in the case
of many of them for relaxation on the one hand and pleasant
excitement on the other. Sameness has a similar depressing
influence on them as on man, whether this sameness be of scene,
surroundings, air, or food.” Persian cats, doomed usually to
pass their lives in city apartments, go, of course, from one to
the other without apparent discomfort or unhappiness. Occa-
sionally a cat with a grand passion for a man will hunt him
out. Pennant records that when the Earl of Southampton,
the friend and companion of the Earl of Sussex in his fatal
insurrection, was confined to the Tower of London, he was
surprised by a visit from his favourite cat, who, it is said,
obtained access to the Earl by descending the chimney of his
apartment.

‘‘ Animals are such friends; they ask no questions, they pass
no criticisms,” wrote the unenlightened George Eliot some-
where or other. This is certainly not true of cats. An ordi-
nary kitten will ask more questions than any five year old boy.
He is the most catechismal of animals, with the possible excep-
tion of the monkey. Curiosity, indeed, is a predominant cat
trait and a cat’s first duty on entering a new domain is to ex-
plore every square inch of it. He not only examines every
corner of the house he lives in but investigates the country for
miles around. Lane thinks this is the reason he can find
his way back home when he has been carried away. Once
this initiative ceremony is completed, the cat, in most in-

“ Mind in the Lower Animals”; Vol. II, p. 247.

-® C. H. Lane: “Rabbits, Cats and Cavies.”

Treating of Traits

stances, expresses his satisfaction by turning round and round
and finally settling down to sleep. There is a superstition to
the effect that if you butter or grease a cat’s feet after taking
him to a new home he will not run away, and Ernest Thomp-
son Seton has introduced a reference to it in his story, “ The
Slum Cat.” The basis of the superstition is the fact that
a cat will wash himself directly you put grease on his paws
and that almost always after washing, a cat will fall asleep and
that if you can get a cat to sleep in a place it is pretty safe to
say that he will be satisfied to remain there. Curiosity, of
course, is an instinct taken over from the wild state, in which
exploration was dangerous but necessary and it has been in-
geniously explained that a cat circles round and round before
lying down because he dimly remembers that he is treading a
lair out of the tall grass. Curiosity in a cat, however, goes
further than mere protective instinct. No box, no package, no
paper bag ever enters my door that Feathers does not examine
it, and this is no rare quality but one which is generally dis-
tributed. Any new box, any open drawer serves as a new
place to nap in. Cats, however, can seldom be induced to
eat from the hand, and then only with great reluctance, hesi-
tation, and delicacy, so exactly are curiosity and caution bal-
anced in the feline mind. They also sniff at objects, but one
smell is enough. They do not return for reassurance.
There are those who assert that the sense of smell in a cat is
not highly developed.*^ I think myself that it is largely super-

21 “ Animal Heroes.”

22 But cats are frequently intoxicated by the odour of valerian and they adore

the fragrance of flowers. Sometimes even they express delight over the artifices
of Houbigant, Coty, and Bichara. In this they differ from dogs, as W. H. Hud-
son has pointed out (“The Great Dog-Superstition” in “The Book of a Natu-
ralist”): “The pampered lap-dog in the midst of his comforts has one great

thorn in his side, one perpetual misery to endure, in the perfumes which please
his mistress. He too is a little Venetian in his way, but his way is not hers.
The camphor-wood chest in her room is an offence to him, the case of glass-
stoppered scents an abomination. All fragrant flowers are as asafoetida to his
exquisite nostrils and his face is turned aside in very ill-concealed disgust from

The Tiger in the House

seded by a highly charged electrical nervous system and by the
senses of sight, hearing, and touch.^^ Madame Michelet
decided that the sense of smell In a kitten was more highly de-
veloped than In the grown cat. She was able to awaken kittens
by putting milk under their noses. The same experiment with
older cats did not prove successful.

It has long been a favourite contention of mine that nothing
Is more ephemeral than science; no books are sooner ready for
the garret or the waste-basket than serious books. When a
serious book has an artistic value, such as a book by Nietzsche,
for instance, the case is altered, but the ordinary professor’s
or scientist’s profound discoveries are absolutely worthless
In a few years. They serve. Indeed, only to Indicate the
quaint fluctuations, the ebb and flow, of human thought. The
first to admit this Is the scientist himself, who tells you that
you must work only along the lines of the “ latest discoveries.”
Now these latest discoveries are usually ideas that have been
filched from some philosopher, black magician, or monk who
lived In the neolithic age. The mediaeval grlmoires are
probably unworked gold mines of “ new thought.” Freud Is
foreshadowed in eighteenth century philosophy; even Chris-
tian Science Is not new. You can find the germ of almost
every science or philosophy In Aristotle, Paracelsus, or Mes-
mer. Alchemists were familiar with laws which scientists have
recently rediscovered. Arlsteus, the philosophical alchemist. Is
said to have delivered to his disciples what he termed the
golden key of the Great Work, which had the power of render-
ing all metals diaphanous. Yet I have never heard Arlsteus

the sandal-wood box or fan. It is warm and soft on her lap, but an incurable
grief to be so near her pocket-handkerchief, saturated with nasty white-rose or
lavender. If she must perfume herself with flowery essences he would prefer an
essential oil expressed from the gorgeous Rafflesia Arnoldi of the Bornean forest,
or even from the humble carrion-flower which blossoms nearer home.”

2® Cats have an especial fondness for certain textures. They like paper or
something rough that tears with a noise.

“ Les Chats,” p. 202.

CHAMPION KING WINTER

Treating of Traits

described as the Inventor of the X Ray. There are few today
who would attempt to duplicate the engineering feats of the
Egyptians.

Men who devote their lives to science usually have no sense
of humour. They are often asses. A. G. Mayer, according
to John Burroughs, has proved conclusively that the promethea
moth has no colour sense. The male of this moth has blackish
wings and the female reddish brown. Mayer caused the two
sexes to change colours ; he glued the wings of the male to the
female and vice versa and found that they mated just the
same ! Well, Professor Mayer could have arrived at the
same brilliant conclusion If he had painted a yellow tom cat
black and a cream queen green. There Is a certain little
reason by which a female can distinguish a male but no scien-
tist would ever think of that. Serious scientific works, there-
fore, may be regarded as generally negligible. In the first place
because It Is Impossible to approximate truth by rushing blindly
In one direction, closing out all distracting sights and sounds,
no matter how strongly they bear on the subject. In the second
place because there Is no such thing as truth. Any mystic
philosopher can feel more than a scientist can ever learn.

There have been sects of somatlsts who do not believe that
the cat Is endowed with a soul. But this discussion has gone
out of fashion because man Is no longer very much Interested
In the soul. It Is now the part of smart scientific conversation
to talk more about tbe brain. During the nineteenth century
many scientists, psychologists, natural historians, zoologists,
and the like, have devoted their entire time to the consideration
of the problem as to whether or no animals think. Darwin,
of course, for the sake of his evolutionary theory, warmly
espoused the cause of thinking brutes, and Romanes and others
have followed him In this direction. Other men of more or
less Importance have disagreed and talk about “ Instinct,” etc.
A whole literature of neglected and contradictory books has
grown up on the subject and I Imagine anything written before

The Tiger in the House

the hour of midnight of the morning on which you are reading
these pages would be considered entirely worthless in any self-
respecting professor’s class-room. “ II n’y a pas un de ces
livres qui n* en demente un autre,” remarks the supremely
sagacious Sylvestre Bonnard, “ en sorte que, quand on les
connatt tous, on ne sait que penser” Elsewhere I have given
a short bibliography of the subject and you may take a melan-
choly pleasure in perusing some of the arguments pro and con.

The worthy John Burroughs^® informs us that when he
hears an animal laugh he will believe in his reason. Man, he
says, can be reached through his mind, an animal only through
his senses. The whole secret of the training of wild ani-
mals is to form new habits in them. Any army captain will
inform Mr. Burroughs that this is the whole secret of training
men. There are others who will contradict Mr. Burroughs.
“ There is really nothing so primitive, even so animal as
reason,” writes Havelock Ellis.^'^ “ It may plausibly, how-
ever unsoundly, be maintained that it is by his emotions, not
by his reason, that man differs most from the beasts. ‘ My cat,’
says Unamuno, who takes this view in his new book, ‘ Del senti-
miento tragico de la vida,’ ‘ never laughs or cries; he is always
reasoning.’ ”

Mr. Burroughs also decided that animals cannot think be-
cause they have no language and that you cannot think with-
out language. But have they not? The vocal language of
cats is extraordinarily complete as I shall show in a later
chapter. This is complemented by a gesture language which
can, of course, only be completely understood by other cats.
There is, for instance, the language of the tail. The cat with
a tail raised high like a banner is a satisfied, contented, healthy,
and proud cat. A tail carried horizontally indicates stealth
or terror. A tail curled under the body is a signal of fear.

25 “ The Animal Mind”; “The Atlantic Monthly”; November 1910; Vol. 106,
p. 622.

26 “ Impressions and Comments,” p. 233.

Treating of Traits

The cat waves his tail from side to side when he is dissatisfied,
annoyed, or angry; in rage he extends it with the fur distended.
He lashes it as a preparation for battle and he twitches it
when he is amused or pleased. And cats sometimes use their
tails, as women use boas or muffs, as a means of keeping warm.

The variety of ways in which a cat uses his paw is even
greater. Lindsay gives us a catalogue : “ The cat not in-
frequently uses its paw to touch or tap its master’s shoulder
when it desires to attract his notice (‘Animal World’). A
pet cat sitting at a carriage window, when anything passing
takes her fancy, ‘ puts her paw on my chest,’ says her mistress,
‘ and makes a pretty little noise, as though asking me if I had
seen it also.’ Another laid her paw on the lips of a lady who
had a distressing cough every time she coughed, in evidence
possibly of pity, possibly in order to the physical suppression of
the cough by the closure of the aperture by which alone it
could find vent (Wood).^* A third cat touched with her paw
the lips of those who whistled a tune, ‘ as if pleased with the
sound’ (Wood). Cats ‘cuff’ each other or their young —
that is, they give blows, and so punish or administer rebuke
to some unruly or troublesome kitten — with their paws.
They also warm their paws before a fire and use them for
shading the face either from the fire or the sun (‘Animal
World ’) . We are told of a cat frequently patting the nose of
a companion horse. It is well known that our domestic cats
are in the habit of washing their faces by means of their paws,
by which means also they brush and clean their foreheads and
eyes. The cat uses its forepaw too in touching or testing
objects — to ascertain, for instance, their hardness or other
qualities (‘ Percy Anecdotes ’), or to measure the quantity or
discover the level of the fluids certain vessels may contain.
Thus a cat, ‘ when wishing to drink water from a jug,’ used
its paw to ‘ ascertain if it was full enough ’ ( ‘ Animal World ’ ) .

“ Mind in the Lower Animals,” Vol. i, p. 416.

28 “ Man and Beast: Here and Hereafter,” p. 370.

The Tiger in the House

It takes milk from a narrow milk-pot by inserting its paw, curl-
ing it for removal when saturated with milk, and then licking
it (Wood). In a Birmingham burglary case, heard at the
Warwick Assizes in March 1 877, ‘ the prosecutor deposed that
he was awakened by his cat patting his face, puss having dis-
covered the burglars rummaging his bedroom.’ (‘ Inverness
Courier,’ March 29, 1877).” It might be added that the cat
frequently scratches to attract attention. It would also be
possible to enumerate countless ways in which the cat uses his
head, his eyes, and even his fur for purposes of conversation.

Professor Edward L. Thorndike undertook to make some
exceedingly Ingenious and involved experiments with cats and
other animals and he has written a book about them. His
experiments with cats were made with “ puzzle boxes.” Cats
which had been starved for a considerable period were shut in
boxes over which food was placed. Now there were numerous
more or less complicated ways of opening these boxes from
within. The problem was to see how long it would take a
cat to open his box and reach the food. From the results the
professor drew his absolutely valueless conclusions. If the
cats did not find the doctor’s boxes adapertile this is no start-
ing point on which to found a system of animal psychology.
The experiment seems to me entirely analogous to that of put-
ting a hungry and terrified Cherokee Indian into a Rolls-Royce
and asking him, in a strange language, to run it if he wants
his dinner.

One of the favourite arguments of the instinct-pushers
educes the fact that cats, accustomed to bury dung in the wild
state, will go through the motions of digging up earth on a
marble or wooden floor, an instinctive memory of an act no
longer necessary, and therefore unworthy of a being who
thinks. Now this sort of thing can be knocked over by an
idiot baby with one blue eye and one black one. Why, for
instance, do you still shake hands? All reason for doing so,
29 “ Animal Intelligence: Experimental Studies.”

Treating of Traits

the assurance that your friend and you carry no weapons, has
passed away, and yet the stupid instinct survives. With the
cat there is cause for the survival. Nature is well aware that
he may be forced through circumstances or desire to again
lead the wild life; when this happens he is prepared to conceal
all evidence of his whereabouts from his enemies.

Other scientists in claiming inferiority for the beasts, bring
forward as an argument that they always do the same things,
make the same movements, that they neither invent nor pro-
gress. The bee constructs the same receptacle for honey,
the spider weaves the same web, and the barn swallow builds
the same nest. All individual liberty and spontaneity seem
to have been refused them. They appear to obey mechanical
rhythms which are transmitted through the centuries. But
who can say that these rhythms are not superior moral laws
and if the beasts do not progress it is because they sprang
perfect into the world and do not need to, while man gropes,
searches, changes, destroys, and reconstructs without being
able to find anything stable in intelligence, any end to his desire,
any harmony to his form? It is well to remember, O Chris-
tian reader, that it was man that God ejected from Paradise
and not the animals. Besides it is preposterous and stupid
to contend that animals have not freedom of thought, that
they do not think, that they cannot solve individual problems.

Personally I am convinced that all these scientists, psycho-
logists, etc., mean more or less the same thing; they are strug-
gling more or less with the same idea, only they express it in
dissimilar terms. One means instinct when he says intelligence
and the other means intelligence when he says instinct. A
very important system of philosophy, indeed, is based on the
theory that animal instinct is of greater utility than intelli-
gence and asks man to trust to it as much as possible. Women,
I believe, are popularly supposed to be entirely guided by
such principles.

To my mind there is no more doubt that animals think,

The Tiger in the House

after their fashion, than there is that men as a rule do not
think at all. Scientists make the mistake of observing too
closely and of writing down what they think they have seen.
Such matters should be discussed mystically with a certain
aloofness. “ I observe authors who speak concerning cats
with a familiarity most distasteful,” writes Andrew Lang.

Animals do not think after the manner of man; their think-
ing processes are quite different. There is a certain amount of
truth in the theory that they think in abstractions, cold, heat,
etc., but that they do not think of them afterwards as ab-
stractions as human beings do. But I can see no particular
advantage in remembering and discussing such matters.
Robert Louis Stevenson once observed that animals never used
verbs: ‘‘That is the only way in which their thinking differs
from that of men.”

However one point and one point only concerns us greatly
here, that is the relative intelligence of the cat, who by many
is considered inferior mentally to the dog and the horse. The
intelligence of cats, has, I think, been greatly underesti-
mated.^*^ It can hardly be overestimated. “ We cannot with-
out becoming cats, perfectly understand the cat mind,” writes
St. George Mivart.^^ The cat as an individual thinks in en-
tirely different directions from his human companions and
therefore it is difficult to secure the right kind of evidence,
especially as most of the professors judge an animal’s intelli-
gence by his susceptibility to discipline, in other words by his
comparative ability to become the willing slave of man. In
this kind of contest the dog and the horse naturally carry off
all the honours. Because the cat refuses to bend under the
yoke and accept this discipline I do not think he can be proved
an unintelligent animal; quite the contrary. The cat is far too
intelligent to be inveigled into any drudgery or mummery.

I hope I have impressed the reader with the fact that all cats are not alike.
I have seen cats as stupid as any tax-payer.

31 “ The Cat,” p. 366.

Treating of Traits

V a, le secret de reussir,

C^est d’etre adroit, non d’etre utile,

is the advice of the lazy old cat in a fable of Florian. He
compels his human friend to accept him on his own terms. A
dog’s acts are much more imitative and therefore more appli-
cable to human reasoning. But T. Wesley Mills, who stu-
died both animals, writes, “ The cat is far in advance of the
dog in power to execute highly complex co-ordinated move-
ments.” And again, “ In will-power and ability to maintain
an independent existence the cat is superior to the dog.”

Some acts of cats are entirely consonant with human intelli-
gence. Cats have the power to draw inferences from observa-
tion. They easily learn to open doors; many of them learn to
ring bells for admittance. Frequently they answer bells,
knowing that they mean dinner or somebody’s arrival.
Feathers not only goes to the door when the bell rings but
also when she hears the elevator ascending. She even runs
to the telephone when it rings. These and other such ac-
complishments as retrieving the cat is not easily taught. If,
however, she finds it convenient to acquire them she will do so.
Artault de Vevey had a cat who was fond of visiting friends
on the fifth floor (de Vevey lived on the first). She would
cry for admittance; if no one answered her she would scratch at
the doorpanel; as a last resort she would pull the bell rope.

A writer in “ The Spectator ” observed “ a large male
cat who in turn was watching sparrows feeding in a court-yard.
When disturbed by the opening of a back-door the sparrows
always flew to a beech-hedge near. The cat noted this, walked
behind the hedge and waiting opposite the spot to which the
birds generally flew, jumped into the middle of them when

“ The Cat and the Dog Compared”; McGill University; Papers from the
Department of Physiology, 1896.

This was the same Isoline who took baths.

^^“The Cat as Wild Animal”; “The Spectator,” September 12, 1896.

The Tiger in the House

they were next disturbed. This was the result of deliberation
and calculation. Another cat which was watching sparrows
stepped behind a row of paving stones recently taken up as
soon as it saw the writer approaching and secured one driven
over its head. It saw the probability that the birds would be
driven in its direction and it acted on its conclusions in a
second.” Wynter relates an incident of a tom cat of Callen-
dar who was seen bearing away a piece of beef in his jaws.
The servant who followed him watched him lay the morsel
down near a rat hole. Then he hid himself. Presently the rat
came out and was dragging away the meat when the cat
pounced upon him. Emile Achard’s Matapon,®® having killed
all the mice in the house, took to killing field mice. This was
difficult and unpleasant on rainy days but it was not long before
he conceived the idea, and carried it out, of restocking the
house. He brought field mice in alive and let them loose, thus
establishing a new hunting preserve.

Lindsay quotes the following example from the “ Animal
World”: A certain cat and dog were confederates in a

larder theft. The cat by its mewing called the dog when cir-
cumstances were favourable to their depredations. On one
occasion when the dog was followed the cat was discovered
mounted on a shelf, keeping the cover of a dish partly open
with one foot and throwing down good things to the dog with
the other! The Reverend J. G. Wood describes an old dis-
abled tom cat who made a bargain with a younger and more
active animal to catch mice for him, the apprentice being paid
with bones and cats’ meat. The compact was honourably car-
ried out on both sides. Once, during an illness, Mrs. Sid-
dons fed her cat the richest cream, the finest parts of the

85 “ Fruit Between the Leaves.”

36 “ 'Fhg History of My Friends, or Home Life with Animals.”

“ Mind in the Lower Animals”; Vol. I, p. 391.

38 “ Fruit Between the Leaves.”

Treating of Traits

chicken. Thereafter he occasionally shammed lameness in
order to get these delicacies.

Eugene Muller, in “ Animaux Celebres,” furnishes us with
another admirable example: A professor, who wished to dem-
onstrate to his pupils the uses of a pneumatic machine, intro-
duced a cat under the glass bell. The animal, of course, made
frantic efforts to escape, but the glass held him a prisoner. “ I
am going to show you,” said the professor, “ how, as I pump,
the air under the globe will become rarefied; the cat will
breathe with more and more difficulty, and indeed would be
asphyxiated if I pumped long enough, but we will conclude the
experiment before that, and you will see that the moment the
air re-enters the cat will immediately regain all his forces.”
It all happened exactly as he had described it. The professor
pumped, and the cat fell panting, thinking, doubtless, that his
last hour was upon him. But, the instant the professor ceased
to pump, puss was himself once more. He was released and
ran away, making a vow, no doubt, that he would not be caught
again. In a few days, however, before another class, the good
doctor had occasion to repeat the experiment. The cat was
captured and placed under the bell and the professor began his
explanation, “ I am going to show you how, as I pump . . .”
But the students observed a quite different phenomenon from
that which was intended, for, as the professor pumped, the cat
placed one of his paws over the opening through which the air
was to be drawn away. And as often as the professor at-
tempted to repeat the experiment he repeated his counter-
gesture !

During the Crimean War, Col. Stuart Wortley’s cat visited
the doctor’s hut to get a bayonet wound in the foot examined
and bandaged. The colonel found her wounded after the
battle of Malakoff and took her daily for a time to the regi-
mental surgeon for treatment. But when he himself became
ill she continued the visits of her own accord and sat quietly

The Tiger in the House

down for her usual treatment.^® There are many recorded
instances of cats bringing their kittens to their mistresses for
treatment and cats have been known to give one another
obstetrical assistance. In Madame Michelet’s book, Mr.
Frederick Harrison relates a touching incident of an old lady
cat. She felt she was dying before her kittens were weaned.
She could hardly walk but she disappeared one morning carry-
ing a kitten and came back without it. Next day, quite ex-
hausted, she took away her other two kittens and then died.
She had carried each kitten to a separate cat, each of which
was nourishing a family and accepted the new fosterling.

A cat will sit washing his face within two inches of a dog in
the most frantic state of barking rage, if the dog be chained.
He knows the dog cannot get away. Cats also have a habit
of tantalizing dogs by lying on exposed window-sills, with
paws temptingly depending just out of reach. You may also
have observed for yourself how impertinent cats can be to dogs
who are muzzled.

Any one who has lived on terms of comparative equality
with a cat knows that he will show his intelligence fifty times
a day. To be sure this intelligence is usually of the variety
called selfish. Thereby the cat shows how much finer his in-
telligence is than that of the rest of the animal world. He
is quite unwilling to perform feats of intelligence for which he
can see no legitimate reason, or through which he is unable to
derive any personal satisfaction. If he wantsi submaxillary
massage he knows that he is pretty sure of getting it by leaping
into some one’s lap. If he does not want it he knows that the
best way of avoiding it is to avoid the person who insists on
lavishing it. A cat, it has been said, will only come when
called if dinner is in the offing. This is very much my pro-
cedure. I refuse to make casual calls but often accept invita-
tions to dinner.

In spite of his independence and his inadaptability to human

39 “ Mind in the Lower Animals,” Vol. II, p. 374.

Treating of Traits

desires the cat can be made useful, which is perhaps fortunate
as there are certain people who consider an animal worthless
who cannot be made in some way to serve that superior being
man. In England cats work for the government in offices,
barracks, docks and workshops. There are at least two thou-
sand felines so employed and they are all on the pay-roll, re-
ceiving a shilling a week. This is for food, for contrary to
popular belief hungry cats do not make the best mousers.
Benvenuto Cellini was right when he said, “ Cats of good
breed hunt better fat than lean.” They serve to effectually
rid these places of rodents. The National Printing Office
of France employs a large staff of cats to guard the paper
from rats and mice. Vienna has official cats and the Mid-
land Railway in England has eight cats among its employees.
Cats are kept in all the large United States Post Offices and
in the military magazines. A writer in ” The Spectator ”
tells of the regret felt in a large London factory when the
” best foundry cat ” died. The sand moulds for making casts
in the foundry are mixed with flour. Mice eat the flour and
spoil the moulds. Cats are kept to kill the mice but they have
to be taught not to walk on the moulds or to scratch them up.
The cat who died was absolutely perfect in this respect. The
number of mice a good cat-hunter can destroy goes quite be-
yond the probable. Lane writes of Avalking with his cat
Magpie into his stables when a mob of mice dashed across the
room. Magpie leaped into the group and caught four simul-
taneously, two in her jaws and one under each forepaw! Such
prowess is not rare in a good mouser. Every retail and whole-
sale butcher-shop and green-grocer, every stationer, every res-
taurateur, must therefore have his cat or cats. In some gro-
ceries a cellar cat and a shop cat are kept. I have already
mentioned the cold-storage cats. The cat also destroys a great
number of insects, flies, cockroaches, grasshoppers and mosqui-

“ The Cat About Town”; “The Spectator”; Vol. 8o, p. 197.

*^'C. H. Lane: “Rabbits, Cats and Cavies,” p. 231.

The Tiger in the House

toes. During the late war the English government conscripted
500,000 cats, a few of which were sent to sea to test submarines
and the remainder to the trenches. Their warnings of the
approach of a cloud of gas, long before any soldier could
smell it, saved many lives. They also did a good deal towards
ridding the trenches of rats and mice, and probably served as
pets for many a doughboy.

The cat also is the one animal, save the mongoose, that is
not afraid of snakes and can battle successfully even with the
venomous varieties. J. R. Rengger, who has written of the
mammals of Paraguay,"*^ declares that he has more than once
seen cats pursue and kill snakes, even rattle-snakes, on the
sandy, grassless plains of that land. “ With their rare skill,”
he Avrites, “ they would strike the snake Avith their paw, and
at the same time avoid its spring. If the snake coiled Itself
they would not attack it directly, but would go round it till it
became tired of turning its head after them; then they would
strike another blow, and instantly turn aside. If the snake
started to run away, they would seize its tail, as if to play with
it. By virtue of these continued attacks they usually des-
troyed their enemy in less than an hour, but would never eat its
flesh.” The subject has served in fiction but the man who
wrote the following description was certainly writing some-
thing he had once observed: “Now, as the Dryad, curled

to a capital S, quivering and hissing, advanced for the last time
to the charge, it was bound to strike across the edge of the
sofa on which I lay, at the erect head of Stoffles, which van-
ished with a juggling celerity that would have dislocated the
collar-bone of any other animal in creation. From such an
exertion the snake recovered itself Avith an obvious effort,
quick beyond question, but not nearly quick enough. Before
I could well see that it had missed its aim, Stoffles had launched
out like a spring released, and, burying eight or ten claws in

*2 “ Saugethiere von Paraguay.”

G. H. Powell: “The Blue Dryad” in “Animal Episodes.”

Treating of Traits

the back of its enemy’s head, pinned it down against the stiff
cushion of the sofa. The tail of the agonized reptile flung
wildly in the air and flapped on the arched back of the imper-
turbable tigress. The whiskered muzzle of Stoffles dropped
quietly, and her teeth met once, twice, thrice, like the needle
and hook of a sewing-machine, in the neck of the Blue Dryad;
and when, after much deliberation, she let it go, the beast fell
into a limp tangle on the floor.” Moncrif speaks of this
special talent of cats. According to the Frenchman a certain
promontory in the Island of Cyprus is known as the Cape of
Cats. Formerly there was a monastery there and the promon-
tory was infested with black and white snakes. The cats
belonging to the monks spent happy days hunting serpents,
but, when the bell rang, always returned to the monastery for
their meals.

Lieutenant Colonel A. Buchanan, M, is convinced that
the Indian plagues are caused by rats and that they could be
prevented if the natives could be prevailed upon to keep cats.‘‘®
He produces statistics which seem to prove that the villages in
which there were cats in each household were free from epi-
demics of cholera.

In the sixteenth century a German, one Christopher of
Hapsburg, projected a plan for having poison gases in jars
attached to the backs of cats disseminated in battle. Chris-

Moncrif: “ Les Chats,” p. 59.

“ Cats as Plague Preventers”: “British Medical Journal”; London; Octo-

ber 24, 1908; Vol. 3, p. 1231.

Hindus, vyho believe in the doctrine of metempsychosis, have a valid ob-
jection to taking life. In Bombay there is a hospital for sick animals. Professor
Monier Williams, who visited it, says, “The animals are well fed and well
tended, though it certainly seemed to me that a great majority would be more
mercifully provided for by the application of a loaded pistol to their heads. . . .
It is even said that men are paid to sleep on dirty woollen beds in different
parts of the building that the loathsome vermin with which they are infested
may be supplied with their nightly need of human blood. These men are
drugged so that they will not involuntarily kill the vermin In their sleep.”
E. P. Evans: “Evolutionary Ethics and Animal Psychology,” p. 140.

The Tiger in the House

topher was an officer of artillery and he presented his drawing,
which was not accepted for practical use, to the Council of
One and Twenty at Strassbourg. It still exists in the great
library there. There is another story, certainly apocryphal,
that the Persians, bearing pussies in their arms, once marched
upon the Egyptians who, refusing to harm the sacred animal,
were put to rout.

I have elsewhere related how occasionally cats bring rabbits
home to their masters. They have served even stranger pur-
poses. A physician told me of a lady whose milk came slowly
after child-birth. He suggested the substitution of an animal
at the nipple. It happened that the family cat had kittened the
same night and the tiny mammal was substituted with complete
success. Daughter and kitten therefore grew up as soeurs de
lait. This cat acquired the pretty habit of lighting the
Christmas tree, by pressing a button with her forepaw. She
lived to the remarkable age of 28 but in her last year de-
veloped a cancer. The physician dressed and cared for the
disease until Christmas eve when she lighted her last Christmas
tree and immediately afterwards was chloroformed.

But it seems to me that the more useless a cat is the more he
has earned his right to companionship. There are enough
people “ trying to make themselves useful ” in this world with-
out the added competition of cats. And those who care most
for the cat certainly never think of him as a mouser or a snaker.
A writer in “ The Nation ” has it: “ To respect the cat is the

beginning of the aesthetic sense. At a stage of culture when
utility governs all of its judgments, mankind prefers the dog”

He continues: “To the cultivated mind the cat has the charm of complete-

ness, the satisfaction which makes a sonnet more than an epic. . . . The ancients
figured eternity as a serpent biting its own tail. There will yet arise a philoso-
pher who will conceive the Absolute as a gigantic and self-satisfied cat, purring
as it clasps in comfortable round its own perfection, and uttering as it purrs,
that line of Edmund Spenser’s about the Cosmos — ‘It loved itself because itself
was fair.’ A cat blinking at midnight among your papers and your books de-
clares with more eloquence than any skull the vanity of knowledge and the use-

Treating of Traits

and a distinguished scholar at Oxford avowed to believe
that men admired cats or dogs according as to whether they
were Platonists or Aristotelians: “The visionary chooses a

cat; the man of concrete a dog. Hamlet must have kept a
cat. Platonists, or cat-lovers, include sailors, painters, poets,
and pick-pockets. Aristotelians, or dog-lovers, include
soldiers, foot-ball players, and burglars.” Champfleury’s
dictum is that “ refined and delicate natures understand the
cat. Women, poets, and artists hold it in great esteem, for
they recognize the exquisite delicacy of its nervous system;
indeed, only coarse natures fall to discern the natural distinc-
tion of the animal.” Madame Delphine Gay writes of the
catlike man: “ The catlike man is one upon whom no tricks

can be played with success. He possesses none of the qualities
of the doglike man but he enjoys all the advantages of those
qualities. He is selfish, ungrateful, miserly, avaricious, dap-
per, persuasive, gifted with intelligence, cleverness, and the
power of fascination. He possesses refined experience; he
guesses what he does not know; he understands what is hidden
from him. To this race belong great diplomats, successful
gallants, in fact all the men whom women call perfidious.”

The cat is admired for his independence, his courage, his
prudence, his patience, his naturalness, and his wit. He is, as
Madame Michelet reminds us, essentially a noble animal.
There is no mixture in his blood. This is so true that you can
tell any member of the family at a glance. Tiger, lion, and
house-cat differ more in size than in appearance. The origi-
nality of the cat is to offer in himself an exquisite and harmless
miniature of his wild brothers. He lives like a great
lord and there is nothing vulgar about him. The delicacy
of the animal is one of his fascinations. All of us have
wondered how a cat can leap upon a table littered with

lessness of striving. . . . The cat enjoys the march of the seasons, spins through
space with the stars, and shares in her quietism the inevitable life of the uni-
verse. In all our hurrying can we do more? ”

The Tiger in the House

breakable objects, alighting firmly without disturbing any-
thing. Curiously enough, as Philip Gilbert Hamerton
has pointed out, this is not a proof of lady-like civilization in
the cat but again evidence that she has retained her savage hab-
its. “ When she so carefully avoids the glasses on the dinner-
table she is not thinking of her behaviour as a dependent of
civilized man, but acting in obedience to hereditary habits of
caution in the stealthy chase, which is the natural accomplish-
ment of her species. She will stir no branch of a shrub lest
her fated bird escape her, and her feet are noiseless that the
mouse may not know of her coming.” Mr. Hamerton has
captured and crystallized another interesting trait of the cat
when he says, “ The cat always uses precisely the necessary
force, other animals roughly employ what strength they
happen to possess without reference to the small occasion.
One day I watched a young cat playing with a daffodil. She
sat on her hind-legs and patted the flower with her paws, first
with one paw and then with the other, making the light yellow
ball sway from side to side, yet not injuring a petal or a
stamen. She took a delight, evidently, in the very delicacy of
the exercise, whereas a dog or a horse has no enjoyment in
his own movements, but acts strongly when he is strong, with-
out calculating whether the force used may be in great part
superfluous. This proportioning of the force to the need is
well known to be one of the evidences of refined culture, both
in manners and in the fine arts. If animals could speak as
fabulists have feigned, the dog would be a blunt, outspoken,
honest fellow, but the cat would have the rare talent of never
saying a word too much. A hint of the same character is con-
veyed by the sheathing of the claws, and also by the contracta-
bility of the pupil of the eye. The hostile claws are invisible,
and are not shown when they are not wanted, yet are ever
sharp and ready. The eye has a narrow pupil in broad day-
light, receiving no more sunshine than is agreeable, but it will

“ Chapters on Animals.’

'• GATHER KITTENS WHILE YOU MAY

Treating of Traits

gradually expand as twilight falls, and clear vision needs a
larger and larger surface. Some of these cat-qualities are
very desirable in criticism. The claws of a critic ought to be
very sharp, but not perpetually prominent, and the eye ought
to see far into rather obscure objects without being dazzled
by plain daylight.”

There are those who find themselves uninterested in the
appearance and doings of full-grown felines who are unable
to resist the fascinations of kittens. The kitten, indeed, is an
irresistible bundle of animate fur, all nerves and tenderness,
all play-actor, dashing madly against nothing, prancing
down the garden walk with the affected arched back of a
Rutterkin about to commit foul deeds, chasing his tail, making
a vain attempt to capture and swallow his own shadow, peering
curiously at esoteric insects, or entranced and delighted with a
viper, like Cowper’s kitten.

Who, never havittg seen in field or house
The like, sat still and silent as a mouse;

Only projecting , with attention due.

Her whisker d face, she asked him, ' Who are you? ^

Where there are peacocks it is a pretty sight to see the kittens,
amazed by the proud and spreading tail, dash and spring
upon it and go whirling round while the furious bird attempts
to throw the demons off. But it is enough to watch them lap
the cream from a bowl on the breakfast table with the inno-
cence of cherubs, or lie contented purring balls of warm fur
in your lap or on your shoulder. Kittens, like Japanese and
Negro babies, may lose some of their charm when they grow
older, but as kittens they are paramount. And therefore, it
is wise to follow the advice of Oliver Herford:

Gather kittens while you may.

Time brings only sorrow;

A nd the kittens of today

Will be old cats tomorrow.

Chapter Three: Ailurophobes and

Other Cat-Haters

Some 7nen there are love not a gaping pig;

Some that are mad if they behold a cat.

Shylock.

One Is permitted to assume an attitude of placid indifference
In the matter of elephants, cockatoos, H. G. Wells, Sweden,
roast beef, Puccini, and even Mormonism, but In the matter
of cats it seems necessary to take a firm stand. The cat him-
self insists upon this; he Invariably inspires strong feelings.
He is, indeed, the only animal who does. From his admirers
he evokes an intense adoration which usually finds an outlet in
exaggerated expression. It is practically impossible for a cat-
lover to meet a stray feline on the street without stopping to
pass the time of day with him. I can say for myself that it
takes me considerably longer to traverse a street in which cats
occur than it does a catless thoroughfare. But so magnetic
an animal is bound to repel when he does not fascinate, and
those who hate the cat hate him with a malignity which, I
think, only snakes in the animal kingdom provoke to an equal
degree. Puss has, indeed, been dubbed the “ furred serpent.”
The association of the cat with witches and various supersti-
tions is responsible for a good deal of this antipathy; there is
also the aversion of those who love dogs and birds with un-
reasonable exclusions; finally it has pleased many small boys
to make scientific investigation Into the proverbial saying that
a cat has nine lives. So the cat through the ages has been
more cruelly and persistently mistreated than any other beast.
This is, I suppose, natural, when we remember that In one

Ailurophobes and Other Cat-Haters

epoch he was regarded as a god and in another as an adjunct
of sorcery; accordingly he has suffered martyrdom along with
other gnostics.

There is even a disease for cat-haters, known as ailuropho-
bia, in spite of the fact that ailuros (the waving ones) which
the Greeks took aboard their ships to kill mice, are now
thought to have been snowy-breasted martens.^ Ailurophobia
is a stronger feeling than hate; it is a most abject kind of fear.
Strong men and women are seized with nausea, even faint, in
the presence of a tiny kitten, sometimes even an unseen kitten.
The simplest form of this complaint is asthmatic ailurophobia;
in other words people who suffer from asthma or hay-fever
find the disease aggravated by the presence of cats. The other
form is more serious. I have a friend, otherwise seemingly
sane, who exhibits symptoms of the most violent terror at the
sight of a kitten four weeks old; an older cat will sometimes
throw her into convulsions. This malady is not rare, nor is
it limited to women. Scott writes of a gallant Highland chief-
tain who had been “ seen to change into all the colours of his
plaid ” ^ when confronted with a cat. Probably the most
celebrated ailurophobe in history was Napoleon. According
to a popular legend, not long after the battle of Wagram and
the second occupation of Vienna by the French, an aide-de-camp
of the Corsican, who at the time occupied, together with his
suite, the Palace of Schonbrunn, was proceeding to bed at an
unusually late hour when, on passing the door of Napoleon’s
bedroom, he was surprised to hear a most singular noise and
repeated calls for assistance from the Emperor. Opening the
door hastily, and rushing into the room, he saw the greatest
soldier of the age, half undressed, his countenance agitated,
beaded drops of perspiration standing on his brow, making
frequent and convulsive lunges with his sword through the
tapestry that lined the walls, behind which a cat had secreted

1 According to the researches of Professor Rolleston of Oxford.

^ “ Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft,” p. 30.

The Tiger in the House

herself. Madame Junot was aware of this weakness and Is
reported to have gained an important political advantage over
the Little Corporal merely by mentioning a cat at the right
moment. In one of his Spectator papers Addison tells how a
lover won his lady from an ailurophobic rival with the assist-
ance of a “ purring piece of tortoise-shell.” And Peggy Bacon
has woven a diverting tale of an ailurophobic King and a felin-
ophilistlc Queen whose troubles were finally solved by the
Court Physician, who brought them a thin, wliy, long-legged
creature, with no tail at all, large ears like sails, a face like a
lean isosceles triangle with the nose as a very sharp apex, eyes
small and yellow like flat bone buttons, brown fur, short and
coarse, and large floppy feet. It had a voice like a steam siren
and Its name was Rosamund. ” The King and Queen were
both devoted to it; she because it was a cat, he because it
seemed anything but a cat.” ^

Dr. S. Weir Mitchell spent some time investigating the
matter of ailurophobla, sending letters of query all over the
world. He reported * that from one point of view the result
was entirely unsatisfactory. The mass of evidence he accumu-
lated gave him no clue to the cause of the ailment. It has
sometimes been included with prenatal phenomena but without,
it would seem, sufficient justification. Dr. Mitchell educes a
theory that It Is the odour which these allurophobes detect
when they ferret out hidden pussies but cats, house-cats at any
rate, are practically devoid of odour to the ordinary nose.
However it must be remembered that there are people who can
sort handkerchiefs fresh from the laundry by smelling them.
Nevertheless Dr. J. G. Wood’s theory that allurophobes sense
hidden cats by their electricity seems more plausible.

Whatever the cause there are many recorded instances of
persons suffering from ailurophobla exhibiting symptoms of
distress in rooms which apparently contained no cats; later cats

® “ The Queen’s Cat” in “The True Philosopher.”

^ “ Cat Fear”; “The Ladies’ Home Journal”; March 1906.

Ailurophobes and Other Cat-Haters

would be discovered, hidden behind curtains or in closets. Dr.
Mitchell furnishes us with an interesting example: “ In my

own family an uncle was the subject. My father, the late
Professor John K. Mitchell, having placed a small cat in a
closet with a saucer of cream, asked Mr. H. to come and look
at some old books in which he would be interested. He sat
down, but in a few minutes grew pale, shivered and said,
‘ There is a cat in the room.’ Doctor Mitchell said, ‘ Look
about you. There is no cat in the room. Do you hear one
outside?’ He said, ‘No, but there is a cat.’ He became
faint and, complaining of nausea, went out and promptly re-
covered.”

Rudyard Kipling once wrote an amusingly ironic story ®
about an ailurophobe, who, through seemingly mystic channels,
was plagued with cats even as the Egyptians were plagued
with locusts. Half the psychical societies in India appear to
have been interested in the solution of the phenomenon but
the explanation when it finally came was neither supernatural
nor miraculous. The page in which Kipling describes the
” sending ” is very diverting: ” When a man who hates cats

wakes up in the morning and finds a little squirming kitten on
his breast, or puts his hand into his ulster-pocket and finds a
little half-dead kitten where his gloves should be, or opens
his trunk and finds a vile kitten among his dress-shirts, or goes
for a long ride with his mackintosh strapped on his saddle-
bow and shakes a little squalling kitten from its folds when he
opens it, or goes out to dinner and finds a little blind kitten
under his chair, or stays at home and finds a writhing kitten
under the quilt, or wriggling among his boots, or hanging,
head downwards, in his tobacco-jar, or being mangled by his
terrier in the veranda, — when such a man finds one kitten,
neither more nor less, once a day in a place where no kitten
rightly could or should be, he is naturally upset. When he
dare not murder his daily trove because he believes it to be a

® “ The Sending of Dana Da ” in “ In Black and White.”

The Tiger in the House

Manifestation, an Emissary, an Embodiment, and half a
dozen other things all out of the regular course of nature, he
is more than upset. Ele is actually distressed.”

Ailurophobes, as a rule, do no harm to cats, although they
are often quite willing to have others put them out of the
way. They usually let cats alone and as cats like to be let
alone they often manifest perverse attention towards ailuro-
phobes, giving them marks of affection and honour. “ I
once had a large silver-ringed cat,” writes Andrew Lang, “ of
unemotional temperament. But finding a lady, rather ailuro-
phobic, in a low dress at dinner, Tippoo suddenly leaped up
and alighted on her neck. He was never so friendly with non-
ailurophobes.”

No, it is not from people who fear cats that puss’s greatest
enemies are recruited. Perhaps unjust and stupid natural
historians have had something to do with the occasional
disfavour in which domestic felines are held. Witness, for
example, what Buffon has to say about the tiger in the house:
“ The cat is a faithless domestic, and only kept through neces-
sity to oppose to another domestic which incommodes us still
more, and which we cannot drive away, for we pay no respect
to those, who, being fond of all beasts, keep cats for amuse-
ment. Though these animals are gentle and frolicsome when
young, yet they, even then, possess an innate cunning and
perverse disposition, which age increases, and which education
only serves to conceal. They are naturally inclined to theft
and the best education only converts them into servile and flat-

® Those who have no feeling for cats regard them as ululant retromingent
mammals. Thomas Pennant, perhaps, was one of these. Here is his description
of the sphinx of the fireside: “It is an useful, but deceitful, domestic; active,

neat, sedate, intent on its prey. When pleased it purres and moves its tail;
when angry it spits, hisses, and strikes with its foot. When walking it draws in
its claws: it drinks little: is fond of fish: it washes its face with its fore-foot
(Linnaeus says at the approach of a storm) : the female is remarkably salacious;
a piteous, squalling, jarring lover. Its eyes shine in the night: its hair when
rubbed in the dark emits fire; it is even proverbially tenacious of life: always
lights on its feet: is fond of perfumes, marum, cat-mint, valerian, etc.”

Ailurophobes and Other Cat-Haters

tering robbers; for they have the same address, subtlety, and
inclination for mischief or rapine. Like all knaves, they know
how to conceal their intentions; to watch, wait, and choose
opportunities for seizing their prey; to fly from punishment,
and to remain away until the danger is over, and they can re-
turn with safety. They readily conform to the habits of
society, but never acquire its manners; for of attachment they
have only the appearance, as may seem by the obliquity of their
motions and the duplicity of their looks. They never look
in the face those who treat them the best, and of whom they
seem to be the most fond, but either through fear or false-
hood, they approach him by windings to seek for those caresses
they have no pleasure in, but only to flatter those from whom
they receive them. Very different from that faithful animal
the dog, whose sentiments are all directed to the person of his
master, the cat appears only to feel for himself, to live condi-
tionally, only to partake of society that he may abuse it, and by
this disposition he has more affinity to man than the dog, who
is all sincerity.” Buffon somewhat redeems himself by his
last sentence but the foregoing part of this diatribe is arrant
nonsense. Far from averting their gaze, cats have a habit
of staring at one by the hour; it is one of their most dlsconert-
ing tricks. But why waste time confuting Buffon? In that
invaluable work of reference, “ The Devil’s Dictionary,” I
find that Ambrose Bierce remarks in his definition of “ Zo-
ology ” : ‘‘ Two of the science’s most illustrious expounders

were Buffon and Oliver Goldsmith, from both of whom we
learn (‘ 1 ‘ Histoire generale des animaux ’ and ‘ A History of
Animated Nature ’) that the domestic cow sheds Its horns
every two years.” Bierce, himself, however, was no lover of
cats. I do not think he cared for any kind of animal, certainly
not for man. His definition of “ Cat ” in this same dictionary
is “ A soft Indestructible automaton provided by nature to
be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.” Noah
Webster may be added to this infamous list. In his dictionary

The Tiger in the House

he inserted this gratuitous insult to “ the stealthy-stepping
cat”: ” The domestic cat is a deceitful animal and when en-

raged extremely spiteful.” Sir Walter Scott originally dis-
liked cats; in his latter days he admitted: “The greatest

advance of age which I have yet found is liking a cat, an animal
which I detested, and becoming fond of a garden, an art which
I despised.” King Henry III of France, a weak and dissolute
monarch, hated cats. So did Meyerbeer, M. Jusserand says
of Ronsard, “ He cannot hide the fact that he likes to sleep
on the left side, that he hates cats, dislikes servants ‘ with
slow hands,’ believes in omens, adores physical exercises and
gardening, and prefers, especially in summer, vegetables to
meat.” And Ronsard bimself left evidence of his aversion in
the following stanzas :

Homme ne vit, qui tant hdisse au rnonde

Les chats que moi, d’une haine profonde.

Je hai leurs yeux, leur front, et leiir regard;

Et les voyant je m’enfms d’ autre part?

Edmund Gosse has rendered these lines into English:

There is no man noiu living anywhere

Who hates cats with a deeper hate than I ;

I hate their eyes, their heads, the way they stare.

And when I see one come, I turn and fly?

Honore Schoefer and Toussenel also hated cats. The latter
once remarked that no man of taste could maintain sympa-
thetic relations with an animal which was fond of asparagus.

Hilaire Belloc has very forcibly expressed his dislike of cats,

Dr. Johnson, who really liked cats better than Boswells, was somewhat diffi-
dent about saying so. The definition in his dictionary is ambiguous: “A do-

mestick animal that catches mice, commonly reckoned by naturalists the lowest
order of the leonine species.”

® From a long poem addressed to Remy Belleau, the poet, quoted in Graham R.
Tomson’s anthology, “ Concerning Cats.”

^ “ Gossip in a Library,” p. 178.

Ailurophobes and Other Cat-Haters

but in spite of himself, admiration for the little animals sneaks
in and out of his horrid lines:

“ I do not like Them. It is no good asking me why, though
I have plenty of reasons. I do not like Them. There would
be no particular point in saying I do not like Them if it were
not that so many people doted on Them, and when one hears
Them praised, it goads one to expressing one’s hatred and fear
of Them.

“ I know very well that They can do one harm and that They
have occult powers. All the world has known that for a hun-
dred thousand years, more or less, and every attempt has been
made to propitiate Them. James I would drown Their mis-
tress or burn her, but They were spared. Men would mum-
mify Them in Egypt, and worship the mummies; men would
carve Them in stone in Cyprus and Crete and Asia Minor, or
(more remarkable still) artists, especially in the Western Em-
pire, would leave Them out altogether, so much was Their in-
fluence dreaded. Well, I yield so far as not to print Their
name, and only to call Them, ‘ They ’ but I hate Them and I
am not afraid to say so.

“ Their master protects Them. They have a charmed life.
I have seen one thrown from a great height into a London
street which when It reached it It walked quietly away with
the dignity of the Lost World to which It belonged.

“They will drink beer. This is not a theory; I know it;
I have seen it with my own eyes. They will eat special foods;
They will even eat dry bread . . . but never upon any occa-
sion will They eat anything that has been poisoned, so utterly
lacking are They in simplicity and humility, and so abominably
well filled with cunning by whatever demon first brought Their
race into existence.

“ All that They do is venomous, and all that They think is
evil, and when I take mine away (as I mean to do next week
— in a basket), I shall first read in a book of statistics what
is the wickedest part of London, and I shall leave It there, for

The Tiger in the House

I know of no one even among my neighbours quite as vile as
to deserve such a gift.”

Alphonse Daudet was afraid of cats; he told Georges Doc-
quols the cause of this terror: ‘‘One evening we were at

home, circled around the lamp. My father alone was absent
and not expected to return that night. Indeed, we expected
nobody. The peace of the fireside was complete and charm-
ing. Suddenly, In the next room, the piano began to play
Itself. As If under the gloved fingers of thick mittens, the
notes cried feebly at Intervals. ... I was terrified. All of
us were frightened. . . . After a moment of silence, the
piano suggested lugubrious chromatic groans. It was as
though souls were weeping In the drawing-room. What a
sensation ! Then the piano spoke no more, ceased to groan,
but there was a fall on the carpet of something light and heavy
at the same time, a muffled weight Impossible to describe. . . .
After another silence, a little cry. ... It was the house-cat.”

If cat-haters would only be content with hating no one would
have any complaint to make, but poor puss has been persecuted
as virulently as Christians In ancient Rome and Jews In modern
Poland.

Cats both black and brave unnumbered
Have for naught been foully slain.

As he frequently jumped In and out of the windows of
houses Inhabited by witches he speedily became affiliated In the
public mind with the pythoness herself and often shared her
dread fate. These mediaeval hags did nothing to dispel this
belief, for often In their confessions they Inculpated cats. In
a seventeenth century execution fourteen cats were shut In a
cage with a woman who was roasted over a slow fire while the
cats in misery and terror clawed her in their own death
agonies. When Queen Elizabeth was crowned a feature of

“ On Them” in “On Nothing and Kindred Subjects”; Methuen and Co.;
1908.

Ailurophobes and Other Cat-Haters

the processor! was a wicker pope, the interior of which was
filled with live cats, who “ squalled in a most hideous manner
as soon as they felt the fire.” The culmination of many a
religious fete in Germany, France, and England consisted in
pitching some wretched puss off a height or into a bonfire. In
1753 certain Frenchmen received a quittance of one hundred
sols parisis for having furnished during three years all the cats
necessary for the fires of the festival of St. John.

In Vosges, cats were burned on Shrove Tuesday; in
Alsace they were tossed into the Easter bonfire. In the de-
partment of the Ardennes, cats were flung into the bonfires
kindled on the first Sunday in Lent; sometimes, in a more
graceful form of cruelty, they were hung over the fire from the
end of a pole and roasted alive. “ The cat, which represented
the devil, could not suffer enough.” In the midsummer fires
formerly lighted in the Place de Greve at Paris it was the
custom to burn a basket, barrel, or sack full of live cats which
was hung from a tall mast in the midst of a bonfire. In 1648
Louis XIV, crowned with a wreath of roses and bearing roses
in his hands, ignited this fire, danced before it, and partook of
the banquet afterwards in the Hotel de Ville.^^

Workmen in France were at one time accustomed before
laying the last board in a floor to intern underneath it a living
cat; this ceremony was supposed to carry good fortune to the
inmates of the house. In demolishing old mansions in Paris
the dried remains of pussies convulsed in suffering that they en-
dured in dying are often found.

In the old remedies devised by hags and sorcerers there
were cat ingredients: cats’ brains, cats’ eyes and cats’ grease
were called for in certain prescriptions. In an old collection
called “ The Young Angler’s Delight ” the following recipe
for catching fish may be found: “Smother a cat to death;

then bleed him, and having flea’d and paunched him, roast him
on a spit without larding; keep the dripping to mix with the
These examples are from Frazer’s “ The Golden Bough.”

The Tiger in the House

yolks of eggs and an equal quantity of oil of spikenard; mix
these well together, and anoint your line, hook or bait there-
with, and you will find them come to your content.”

Small boys have long held it to be their prerogative to tor-
ment cats, tying cans or a string of exploding firecrackers to
their tails, installing their paws in walnut shells, or sending
them to navigate the horse-pond in a bowl. Booth Tarking-
ton, who may be considered an authority on the adolescent
period, writes, “ The suffering of cats is a barometer of the
nerve-pressure of boys, and it may be accepted as sufficiently
established that Wednesday — after school-hours — is the
worst time for cats. . . . Confirming the effect of Wednesday
upon boys in general, it is probable that, if full statistics were
available, they would show that cats dread Wednesdays, and
that their fear is shared by other animals and would be shared,
to an extent by windows, if windows possessed nervous systems.
Nor must this probable apprehension on the part of cats and
the like be thought mere superstition. Cats have supersti-
tions, it is true, but certain actions inspired by the sight of a
boy with a missile in his hand are better evidence of the work-
ings of logic upon a practical nature than of faith in the super-
natural.” Edwin Tenney Brewster tells how boys in de-
fault of a proper football played their game through with two
living cats bound together with a clothes line. “ The public
is sentimental,” he observes. “ It can’t bear to have the little
things killed. So it drops them into ash-harrels, where they
die — in the course of time and not altogether comfortably.
It tosses them into cess-pools, and happily the next rain sends
water enough to drown them. Specially careful house-wives
before consigning kittens to the waste heap have been known
to make them into neat bundles, in paper boxes, tied with
string. This kindly device protects the helpless creatures from
stray dogs and allows them to smother or starve in quiet.

12 “ Penrod and Sam,” p. 205.

12 “ The City of 4,000,000 cats”; “McClure’s Magazine”; May 1912.

Ailurophobes and Other Cat-Haters

A short and easy method in tenement districts is simply to
open the window and toss the kittens out. A four-story drop
on to the brick pavement or area spikes is commonly a suffi-
cient hint to an intelligent kitten not to return.” Cats are
thrown off church towers with blown bladders attached to their
necks, killed by dogs, thrown into barrels with dogs to fight,
kicked to death, drowned, turned alive into bakers’ ovens
and stoves, thrown into lime, their heads crunched under heels,
tied together by their tails and hung up. In Spain, in Gau-
tier’s day, it was the custom to deprive cats of their ears and
their tails, giving them the appearance of ” Japanese chi-
meras.” In Havana, I have been told, urchins enjoy a
merry sport which entails the dipping of puss into a pail of
kerosene and a subsequent ignition. Then the comet-like trail
of howling fiery fur is released. In 1815, just before the de-
parture of Napoleon for St. Helena, a wag perpetrated a joke
in the city of Chester. Handbills were distributed which an-
nounced that the island was overrun with rats and that 16 shill-
ings would be paid for every full-grown tom cat, los. for
every full-grown female, 2s. 6d. for every kitten. On the day
appointed the city was filled with men, women, and children
carrying cats. A riot ensued and the cats escaped. Several
hundred were killed and many others drowned while the re-
mainder infested neighbouring houses and barns for many
weeks afterwards.^® In France puss is undoubtedly fre-

In the early editions of “ Marius the Epicurean ” you may discover this
paragraph: “ It was then that the host’s son bethought him of his own favourite

animal, which had offended somehow, and had been forbidden the banquet, —
‘I mean to shut you in the oven a while, little soft, white thing! ’ he had said,
catching sight, as he passed an open doorway, of the great fire in the kitchen,
itself festally adorned, where the feast was preparing; and had so finally for-
gotten it. And it was with a really natural laugh, for once, that, on opening
the oven, he caught sight of the animal’s grotesque appearance, as it lay there,
half-burnt, just within the red-hot iron door.” Mr. Pater removed this passage
from later editions of this book.

16 “ Voyage en Espagne,” p. 299. .

i®Phyfe: “5,000 Facts and Fancies.”

The Tiger in the House

quently eaten as rabbit. Of this custom I have found a
brief mention in a book, the name of the unworthy author
of which I will not further advertise. A French sailor is
speaking: “Sometimes we have rabbit stew. When my

sister was married we had rabbit stew. For weeks before-
hand we caught cats on the roads, in the fields, in the
barns. My brother caught cats and I caught cats, and my
father caught cats; we all caught cats. We caught forty cats,
perhaps fifty cats. Some were toms, some were females with
kittens inside them. Some were black and some were white
and some were yellow and some were tabbies. One cat
scratched a big gash in my brother’s face and he bled. Then
we locked them in a room, my father and I. . . . My brother
was afraid after he had been scratched. . . . We went into
the room with cudgels and beat about us, beat the cats on
the head. For an hour we chased them round the room until
all the cats lay dead on the floor. Flow they did howl, and
screech, and fight, but we were a match for them. Then my
brother and my mother skinned the cats and made a magnifi-
cent rabbit stew for my sister’s wedding.” One of the ad-
ventures of that arch-rogue. Till Eulenspiegel, relates how
he sewed a cat in a hare’s skin and sold the beast to some fur-
riers at Leipsig. Before dining on its carcass the merchants
wished to enjoy the pleasures of the hunt; so they loosed the
animal in the garden and set the dogs after it, but the hare
climbed a tree and begun to mew, whereupon, of course,
Till’s merry prank was exposed and the cat was killed.

In order to test their superior theories on the subject of
education it will be remembered that the inimitable Bouvard
and Pecuchet experiment with a boy and a girl. These incor-
rigible children proceed at once, of course, to demolish the
theories. One of Victor’s horrible exploits entails the tor-
ture of a cat. Hearing the screams of Marcel, the servant,
Bouvard and Pecuchet rush to the kitchen.

“ ‘ Take him away! It’s too much — ■ it’s too much! ’

'Ailurophobes and Other Cat-Haters

“ The lid of the pot flew off like the bursting of a shell. A
greyish mass bounded towards the ceiling, then wriggled
about frantically, emitting fearful yowls.

“ They recognized the cat, quite emaciated, with its hair
gone, its tail like a piece of string, and its dilated eyes start-
ing out of its head. They were as white as milk, vacant, so
to speak, and yet glaring.

“ The hideous animal continued its howling till it flung it-
self into the fireplace, disappeared, then rolled back in the
middle of the cinders lifeless.

“ It was Victor who had perpetrated this atrocity, and the
two worthy men recoiled, pale with stupefaction and horror.
To the reproaches which they addressed to him, he replied,
‘ Weill since it’s my own,’ without ceremony and with an air
of innocence, in the placidity of a satiated instinct.”

In “ The Brothers Karamazoff ” Dostoievsky indicates the
malignance of Smerdyakoff by telling us that in his childhood
he ” was very fond of hanging cats, and burying them with
great ceremony. He used to dress up in a sheet as though it
were a surplice and sang, and waved some object over the
dead cat as though it were a censer.” In an extremely bad
book called “ Nightshade ” the malevolent Dr. Meisterlim-
mer flings a cat out of an open window into a courtyard.
“ It fell four storeys and broke its spine. He laughed in his
own hearty fashion to see it dragging itself along on its front
paws and wailing. . . .”

At least one cat suffered for having religious convictions.
George Borrow in “ Wild Wales ” describes this poor ani-
mal left behind in Llangollen by a former vicar. Nearly all
the inhabitants of the village were dissenters and they re-
fused to harbour the beast, nay more they persecuted it. ” O,
there never was a cat so persecuted as that poor Church of
England animal, and solely on account of the opinions which it

17 “ Nightshade,” by Paul Gwynne; Constable and Co., London, 1910; p. 270.

Chapter VII.

The Tiger in the House

was supposed to have imbibed in the house of its late master,
for I never could learn that the dissenters of the suburb, nor
indeed of Llangollen in general, were in the habit of persecut-
ing other cats; the cat was a Church of England cat, and that
was enough : stone it, hang it, drown it ! were the cries of
almost everybody. If the workmen of the flannel factory,
all of whom were Calvinistic Methodists, chanced to get a
glimpse of it in the road from the windows of the building,
they would sally forth in a body, and with sticks, stones, or
for want of other weapons, with clots of horse-dung, of which
there was always plenty on the road, would chase it up the
high bank or perhaps over the Camlas — the inhabitants of
a small street between our house and the factory leading from
the road to the river, all of whom were dissenters, if they
saw it moving about the perllan, into which their back win-
dows looked, would shriek and hoot at it, and fling anything
of no value, which came easily to hand at the head or body of
the ecclesiastical cat.” The reader will be glad to learn that
Borrow took puss in hand, cured him of an eruptive disease,
fed him until he was sleek, and when he left the neighbour-
hood gave him in charge to a young woman of “ sound
church principles.” He subsequently learned that the cat
‘‘ continued in peace and comfort till one morning it sprang
suddenly from the hearth into the air, gave a mew and died.”
On vivisection, although undoubtedly one of the perils of
cat life, I have no intention of dwelling here, but it seems an
apt point to speak of the infernal operations of Professor
Mantegazza of Milan, whose “ Physiology of Love ” is more
or less familiar to English readers. Professor Mantegazza
has also written a ” Physiology of Pain,” for which he con-
ducted experiments ” with much delight and extreme patience
for the space of a year.” There is no necessity of rehears-
ing the sickening details of this fiendish book but it may be
stated that among other torments the Italian devised a ma-

“ Fisiologia del Dolore,” p. loi.

Ailurophobes and Other Cat-Haters

chine, which indeed he dubbed a “ tormentor ” in which little
animals which had first been “ quilted with long thin nails ”so
that the slightest movement was agony, were wracked with
added tortures, torn and twisted, crushed and lacerated, hour
after hour. “ In the august name of Science, animals have
been subjected to burning, baking, freezing; saturation with
inflammable oil and then setting on fire; starvation to death;
skinning alive; larding the feet with nails; crushing and tor-
menting in every imaginable way. Human ingenuity has taxed
itself to the utmost to devise some new torture, that one may
observe what curious results may ensue.” There are those
who defend cats in trouble. Octave Mirbeau describes such
a one in his very harrowing story, “ Le Gardien des Vaches ”
in which a kitten is tortured but the torturer in turn meets his
death. What, one wonders, would the author of “ Le Jardin
des Supplices ” have written about Mantegazza ?

There are further the bird-lovers, some of whom are so rab-
idly hysterical on the subject of cats that they would have them
all destroyed.-^ About the mere sentimentalists who protest
against the cruelty of the cat I have nothing to add to my re-
marks in the second chapter of this book. It is natural for a
cat to kill birds; the cat is carnivorous and, like the Follies
girls, he finds a bird particularly tasty. Some cats enjoy hunt-
ing for its own sake and kill many birds they do not eat. Per-
sian cats, because of their value, are usually kept in semi-cap-
tivity and may therefore be ruled out of the discussion.

The majority of those who write against the cat as a bird-
hunter give the question an economic twinge. This is an
old dodge of reformers, a tried and true formula of the uplift,
and it almost always is efficacious in stirring up a certain kind

20 Albert Leffingwell, M. D.: “Vivisection in America” in Henry S. Salt’s
book, “Animals’ Rights”; Macmillan and Co., New York, 1894.

2t In the volume entitled “La Vache Tachetee,” p. 40.

22 In 1897 there was founded in Westphalia the Antikatzenverein, the avowed
object of which was war against the cat.

The Tiger in the House

of public interest. In this instance these gentlemen assert
that the birds free the farm vegetation of grubs and that the
cat in destroying the birds helps to destroy farm produce.
This is all very well but I have never thought that the object
of a scare-crow was to frighten cats and I have seen an entire
cherry-tree denuded of its fruit in a morning by a flock of
birds. It is pleasant to remember that Mr. Darwin has a
curious speculation as to how a scarcity of cats in a rural dis-
trict would soon affect the neighbouring vegetation as the field
animals and birds they prey on would, of course, proportion-
ately increase and their greater numbers tell on vegetable life.

When Calvin, Charles Dudley Warner’s exceptional cat,
first brought in a bird, Mr. Warner told him that it was
wrong, “ and tried to convince him, while he was eating
it, that he was doing wrong; for he is a reasonable cat, and
understands pretty much everything except the binomial
theorem and the time down the cycloidal arc. But with no
effect. The killing of birds went on to my great regret and
shame.” However one day when he found the pea-pods
empty and the strawberry bed raped of fruit Mr. Warner had
a change of heart. He called Calvin and petted him. “ I
lavished upon him an enthusiastic fondness. I told him that
he had no fault; that the one action that I had called a vice
was an heroic exhibition of regard for my interests. I bade
him go and do likewise continually. I now saw how much
better instinct is than mere misguided reason. Calvin
knew. ... It was only the round of Nature. The worms
eat a noxious something in the ground. The birds eat the
worms. Calvin eats the birds. We eat — no, we do not eat
Calvin. There the chain stops. When you ascend the scale

23 The bird-lovers occasionally give themselves away. In an article in
“Bird-Lore,” May 1918, William Brewster tells how he frightened chipmunks
away from his tulips and starlings from his cherries with a stuffed maltese and
white pussy with glaring yellow eyes. The starlings, however, soon were privy
to the deception and continued their depredations.

Ailurophobes and Other Cat-Haters

of being, and come to an animal that is, like ourselves. Inedible,
you have arrived at a result where you can rest. Let us
respect the cat. He completes an edible chain.” It is
pleasant to recall that most literary chapters on the cat are in
a similar vein; even that great bird-lover, Olive Thorne
Miller, inserted a highly laudatory chapter on the cat, the
common, out-door cat at that. In one of her bird books. The
malignant cat-haters. In print, are usually commissioners or
superintendents. They very frequently become feverish and
sometimes even foam at the mouth. One, for instance, speaks
of a blood-thirsty house-bred kitten who had never seen a bird,
crouching and preparing to spring at a phonograph which was
negotiating a nightingale’s song.“® I can duplicate this story.
Aeroplanes frequently fly past my garret window and when
they do Feathers Invariably manifests the liveliest emotion,
rushes to the window, gives her hunting cry; her hair bristles
and she prepares to spring.

Nature, as Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, Anatole France,
James Branch Cabell, and some others have discovered, seldom
rejects an opportunity to be ironic. It should therefore sur-
prise no one to learn that a bird is one of the most dangerous
enemies of the cat. The eagle swoops from the skies, seizes
the cat along his spine with its terrible claws, mangles his
head with its beak the while it flaps its gaunt and terrifying
wings and bears the little beast aloft. A keeper in the eagle
house at a London zoological garden informed Dr. Louis
Robinson that when the eagles were off their food he offered
them cats. “ If they won’t eat cats they are about to die,”
he said.

Another of the most Inveterate and selfish enemies of the

24 “ My Summer in a Garden.”

25 “ Upon the Tree-Tops.”

28 T. G. Pearson: “Cats and Birds” in “The Art World,” May 1917. I
wonder if Mr. Pearson knows that game-keepers in England sometimes kill
nightingales because their singing keeps the pheasants awake?

27 “Wild Traits in Tame Animals.”

The Tiger in the House

cat is the supposed friend who goes to Palm Beach in the
winter or Lake Placid in the summer and leaves puss alone
in the city to shift for himself, or the tender-hearted lady who
says, “ I just can’t bear to drown those sweet kittens.” So
she takes the unweaned babies away from their mother and
leaves them in some public garden where they will meet a
cruel death at the hands of boys or the jaws of dogs, and the
mother cat suffers not only from the loss of her offspring but
from a milk disease as well.^®

It is quite a cheering thought to realize that cats sometimes
hate as keenly as people, that they too contrive their little
revenges and Sicilian vendettas whereby they may in some
small degree compensate for the insults doled out to their race.
A familiar Irish story has it that a man once severely chastised
a cat for some misdemeanour, after which the feline disap-
peared. A few days later the man met the cat in a narrow
path. The animal glared at him with a wicked aspect and
when he endeavoured to frighten her away, she sprang at him,
fastening herself to his hand with so ferocious a grip that
it was impossible to make her open her jaws and the creature’s
head actually had to be severed from her body before the
hand could be extricated. The man afterwards died from
his injuries. Variations of this theme have appeared in fic-
tion. In Frederick Stuart Greene’s story, ‘‘ The Cat of the
Cane-brake,” the feline revenges himself upon a woman
who had mistreated him by dragging a rattle-snake to her
bed and placing it on her chest. Nor must we forget the
eccentric Mr. Wilde’s cat in Robert W. Chambers’s story,
” The Repairer of Reputations.” In her first appearance
in the tale she attacks the ugly dwarf: “ Before I could move

she flattened her belly to the ground, crouched, trembled, and

28 I know of a case of this kind in which a friendly older cat suckled the
mother until her milk disappeared.

29 “ The Metropolitan Magazine”; August 1916.

20 “The King in Yellow.”

THE BLACK CAT

From a drawing by Aubrey Beardsley to ilhtsfrafe Poe’s story, published in a large paper
edition of Tales of ilystery and Wonder, by Stone and Kimball; Chicago; jSgj

Ailurophobes and Other Cat-Haters

sprang into his face. Howling and foaming they rolled over
and over on the floor, scratching and clawing, until the cat
screamed and fled under the cabinet, and Mr. Wilde turned
over on his back, his limbs contracting and curling up like the
legs of a dying spider.” On a later occasion Mr. Wilde is
discovered “ groaning on the floor, his face covered with
blood, his clothes torn to shreds. Drops of blood were
scattered over the carpet, which had also been ripped and
frayed in the evidently recent struggle. ‘ It’s that cursed
cat.’ he said, ceasing his groans, and turning his colourless eyes
to me, ‘ she attacked me while I was asleep. I believe she will
kill me yet.’ ” Mr. Wilde was perfectly right; the cat did
kill him.

In Poe’s tale, “ The Black Cat ” it will be recalled that the
protagonist has persistently maltreated a black cat named
Pluto, who in the end is responsible for handing his master
over to the police as the murderer of his wife. Two old
stories offer interesting corroboration of this fable. One re-
lates how a murder had been committed in the city of Lyons
and a physician requested to inquire into the particulars con-
cerning it. Accordingly he went to the home of the murdered
woman where he found her dead on the floor, lying in a pool
of blood. An enormous white cat surmounted the cupboard,
his eyes fixed on the corpse, his whole bearing indicative of
the greatest terror. All night he kept watch over his dead
mistress. The following morning, when the room was filled
with soldiers, he still maintained his position, disregarding the
clanking of the arms and the noisy conversation. As soon,
however, as the persons under suspicion were brought in, he
glared at them with particular malignancy, and then retreated
under the bed. From this moment the prisoners began to
lose their audacity and subsequently they confessed to the

In “The Street of the Four Winds” (also in “The King in Yellow”) Mr.
Chambers introduces us to a charming white cat as an antidote to his previous
monster.

The Tiger in the House

murder and were convicted.®^ A similar story is to be found
in the autobiography of Miss Cornelia Wright:^® “An old
woman died a few years ago. She had a nephew, to whom she
left all she possessed. She had a favourite cat, which never
left her, and even remained by the corpse after death. The
nephew was a lawyer, and while he was reading the will after
the funeral the cat remained restlessly outside the door of the
room, apparently adjoining that in which the old lady died.
When the door was opened the cat sprang at the lawyer, seized
him by the throat, and was with difficulty prevented from
strangling him. The man died about eighteen months later
and on his deathbed confessed that he had murdered his aunt
to obtain possession of her money.” Edward Jesse relates
a tale he had from a man who was sentenced to transporta-
tion for robbery. He and two other thieves had broken into
the home of a gentleman who lived near Hampton Court.
While they were gathering their plunder in sacks a large black
cat flew at one of the robbers and fixed her claws in his face.

We must not forget the old nursery rhyme:

I love little pussy.

Her coat is so warm;

And if I don’t hurt her
She’ll do me no harm.

The cat, unlike the dog, refuses to return good for evil, or to
turn the right cheek when struck upon the left. These re-
venges, however, are extreme. A cat usually flees a persecutor
or ignores him. But it is amusing to remember that this is
the animal the dog-lover sometimes calls ungrateful!

“ Dictionnaire d’anecdotes ” ; 1820; Vol. 2, p. 274.

33 “ Autobiography of Miss Cornelia Wright, lady companion to the Princess
Charlotte of Wales,” two volumes, 1861; W. H. Allen and Co.; London.

3* “ Gleanings in Natural History”; London; 1838.

Chapter Four: Fhe Cat and the Occult

Notre dame la Lune blonde
Est la patronne des tons chats.

Elle preside a I ears ebats
Avec sa grosse pace ronde,

Quand le vent siffle un air de ronde,

Elle rit a leurs entrechats.

Notre dame la Lune blonde
Est la patronne des bons chats.

Mais quand, apres de long pourchas,

Folle d’amour, la bande gronde,

Elle se voile et cache au monde
Le mystere impur des Sabbats
Notre dame la Lune blonde.

Raoul Gineste.

The mystical character of the cat has challenged attention,
delighting her admirers and terrifying her detractors, since
she strolled rather suddenly and magnificently into history
about 1600 B. c. Her origin Itself Is veiled in the deepest
mystery, for those who believe her to be a gentle descendant
of some tamed wild cat must overlook the fact that of all
terrestrial beasts the wild cat of today most persistently and
ferociously resists all attempts at domestication, ‘‘ Peut-etre
est-il fee, est il dieii,” writes Baudelaire of puss, and again the
French poet speaks of the chat mysterieux, chat seraphique,
chat Strange.” A writer In the “ Occult Review ” Informs us
that cats have green auras and assures us that they are the
most magnetic of quadrupeds. Sir Walter Scott once ob-

The Tiger in the House

served to Washington Irving, “Ah! cats are a mysterious
kind of folk. There is more passing in their minds than we
are aware of. It comes no doubt from their being so familiar
with warlocks and witches.” Sir Walter, however, reversed
cause and effect. Warlocks and witches are familiar with
cats because cats are occult. Their tread is soft and noiseless.
They leap lightly, and apparently blindly to the top of a high-
boy littered with glass and china without disturbing an element
in this brittle composition. The pupils of their eyes, wide
open, vary with the light; in China it has sometimes been the
fashion to tell the time of day by them; in Suffolk cats’ eyes are
popularly supposed to dilate with the ebb and flow of the tide.
Madame Michelet asserts that it is their very transparence,
their clearness, which gives these eyes their mystery, these wide
open eyes which see on and beyond, which stare in an ecstatic
gnostic gaze which has nothing in common with the begging or
reproachful eyes of a dog. At night these eyes glisten and
shine in the dark. Maister Salmon, who writes of puss in his
“ Compleat English Physician,” published in 1693, seems to
be sufficiently bewildered: “ As to its Eyes, Authors say that

they shine in the Night; and see better at the full, and more
dimly at the change of the Moon. Also that the Cat doth
vary his Eyes with the Sun; the Pupil being round at Sunrise,
and long towards the Noon, and not to be seen at all at Night,
but the whole Eye shining in the darkness. These appear-
ances of the Cat’s Eyes, I am sure are true; but whether they
answer to the times of Day, I have never observed.” The
half-shut lids are even more suggestive and significant of
strange thaumaturgic powers. They can be feral, too, these
eyes, a fact that Prosper Merimee has recorded in “ 'Carmen ” :
“ Eye of a gipsy, eye of a wolf is a Spanish proverb which
signifies acute observation. If you have not the time to go to
the zoological gardens to study the stare of a wolf, look at
your cat when he lies in wait for a sparrow.” The fur har-
bours electricity and sends swift currents of this lightning up

The Cat and the Occult

the arm of him who strokes the animal. Sometimes, alone
with a cat in the dead silences of the night, I have watched
the creature’s eyes suddenly dilate, her ears point back; with
arched spine a startling, unexpected, unexplained prance across
the floor follows; then puss settles back again to laundry and
repose as if nothing had happened. What has happened?
What has awakened this fit of wildness? Is it some noise
unheard by humans, an unwelcome smell, or some reminiscence
of the terrible mediaeval nights when the cat joined the witch
in her broom-stick trails across the face of the moon?

The cat walks by herself, retains her pride, her dignity, her
reserve, keeps the secret of the ciborium, and gives no sign of
the cupellations she has witnessed in alchemystical garrets.
She is perverse, refuses to be “ put ” anywhere, often takes
delight in manifesting her affection for some one who has an in-
herent dislike for her, while she frequently ignores an admirer.
“ You never get to the bottom of cats,” says a writer in “ All
the Year Round.” ” You will never find two, well known to
you, that do not offer marked diversities in ways and disposi-
tions, and, in general, the combination they exhibit of activity
and repose, and the rapidity with which they pass from one to
the other, their gentle aspects and fragile forms, united with
strength and pliancy, their sudden appearances and disappear-
ances, their tenacity of life and many escapes from dangers,
their silent and rapid movements, their sometimes unaccoun-
table gatherings, and strange noises at night — all contribute
to invest them with a mysterious fascination, which reaches
its culminating point in the (not very frequent) case of a com-
pletely black cat.”

Is it wonderful that these qualities have served to cause her
to be worshipped as a god, or reviled as a demon? Animals
not infrequently play important roles in mythology and enter
into the elements of religion, but no other animal, it would
seem, is so intimately bound with the arcane rites of several
ages as the cat, waited upon by the priests of Egypt, the

The Tiger in the House

“ familiar ” of witches in the middle ages, the companion of
Saint Ives and Saint Gertrude, “ gentlest of mystics,” in Sicily
sacred to St. Martha, the friend of Mohammed, the time-piece
of China, and the weather-vane of Scotland and England; puss
saunters with noiseless pads, through the folklore and legends
of Europe, Asia, and Africa, now petted, now hated or feared,
now regarded with awe or horror, now with tenderness and
veneration.

The cat is not mentioned in the Bible, ^ a fact which offers
consolation to many dog-lovers, and her name appears only
once in the Apocrypha. “ The allusion is significant. We
learn that a cat may not only look at a king, she is also per-
mitted to sit on a god’s head. Painters of Biblical scenes
have evidently regarded puss’s omission as an oversight or an
impertinent perversion and they have put her into their pictures
while an old Arabian legend connects her creation with the
story of the ark. According to this charming folk-tale the
pair of mice originally installed on board this boat increased
and multiplied to such an extent that life was rendered un-
bearable for the other occupants, whereupon Noah passed his
hand three times over the head of the lioness and she oblig-
ingly sneezed forth the cat. Another oriental story which
obtained wide credence has it that the first day the animals
entered the ark they rested quietly in their state-rooms. The
first to venture forth was the monkey who persuaded the
lioness to forget her vows of fidelity. The result of this
initial transgression of natural laws was not only the birth of
the cat but also, the old author assures us, ” the spreading of

1 “ In the illuminated manuscript known as Queen Mary’s Psalter (1553) there
is a picture of the Fall of Man, in which there is a modification of the idea which
gained wide currency during the middle ages that it was the serpent-woman,
Lilith, who had tempted Adam to eat the forbidden fruit. In this picture, while
the beautiful grace and ample hair of Lilith are shown, instead of the usual
female breast she has the body of a cat.” Moncure Daniel Conway: “Demon-
ology and Devil-lore,” Vol. II, p. 301.

2 Baruch, VI, 22.

The Cat and the Occult

a spirit of coquetry which endured during the whole of the
sojourn the animals made there.” Still another story is re-
lated by Pierre Palliot in “ La vraye et parfaicte science des
armoires ” (Paris; 1664) : “The cat is more harmiful than

useful, its caresses are more to be dreaded than desired, and
its bite is fatal. The cause of the pleasure it gives us is
strange and entertaining. At the moment of the creation of
the world, says the fable, the Sun and the Moon emulated
each other in peopling the earth with animals. The Sun, great,
fiery, and luminous, formed the lion, beautiful, sanguinary,
and generous. The Moon, seeing the other gods in admira-
tion before this noble work, caused a cat to come forth from
the earth, but one as disproportionate to the lion in beauty and
courage as she (the Moon) is to her brother (the Sun) . This
contention gave rise to derision, and also Indignation on the
part of the Sun, who, being angry that the Moon should have
attempted to match herself with him,

Crea par forme de mepris

En meme temps une souris.

As, however, ‘ the sex ’ never surrenders, the Moon made
herself still more ridiculous by producing the most absurd of
all animals, the monkey. This creature was received by the
company of stars with a burst of immoderate laughter. A
flame spread itself over the face of the Moon, even as when
she threatens us with a tempest of great winds, and by a last
effort, in order to be eternally revenged upon the Sun, she set
undying enmity between the monkey and the cat, and between
the cat and the mouse. Hence comes the sole advantage
which we derive from the cat.”

The cat was known in Egypt at least 1600 years before the
birth of Christ, as certain tablets prove. Bast or Pasht was
the cat goddess, worshipped at Bubastes, and it is from this
name that certain wise philologists wish to derive the word,
puss; still others like to think it comes from the Latin, pusus,

The Tiger in the House

little boy, or pusa, little girl. Herodotus informs us that
Pasht occupied a similar position among the Egyptians to that
of Artemis among the Greeks; this was the Diana of the
Romans. Diana, indeed, assumed the form of a cat, when
Typhon forced the gods and goddesses to hide themselves In
animal shapes. There is also a connection with the Norse
goddesses, Freyja, the Teutonic Venus, whose chariot was
drawn by cats, and Helda, who was accompanied by maidens
on cats or themselves distinguished In feline form. Pasht was
the goddess of light, but more than Diana, of both the moon
and sun. The Egyptian word man signified both light and cat.
Moreover the sun-god Ra was frequently referred to as The
Great Cat. Puss prefers the moon; the Hindu poet says,
“ The cat laps the moonbeams In the bowl of water, thinking
them to be milk.” Diana was also the goddess of wisdom,
hunting, and chastity. Wise and a huntress the cat certainly
is, but chaste, never! ^

Vulson de la Colombiere, whose science was heraldry, in the
“ Livre de la science heroique,” speaks quaintly of the cat’s
relation to the moon : “ Comme le lion est iin animal solitaire,

aussi le chat est une hete liinatique, dont les yeux, clairvoyants
et etincelants diirant les plus obscures nuits, croissent et
decroissent a Vimitation de la lune; car, comme la lune, selon
qidelle participe a la lumiere du soleil, change tons les jours
de face, ainsi le chat est touche de pareille affection envers la
lune, sa prunelle croissant et diminuant au meme temps que
cet astre est en son croissant ou en son decours. Plusieurs
naturalistes assurent que, lorsque la lune est en son plein, les
chats ont plus de force et d'adresse pour faire la guerre aux
souris que lorsqid elle est faible! ”

The Egyptians shaved their eyebrows and went into mourn-

® But Professor W. M. Conway says in “The Cats of Ancient Egypt” (“ Eng-
lish Illustrated Magazine”; Vol. 7, p. 251): “Pasht for her part was lady of
love and corresponded in a crude sort of way to that much nobler conception,
the Aphrodite of the Greeks.” Freyja, of course, was an amorous goddess.

AN EGYPTIAN BRONZE HEAD OF A CAT
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

- ilr.-
••V-

The Cat and the Occult

ing when a cat died and the penalty for killing a cat was very
severe. As any one who witnessed a feline death scene was
often suspected of murder, Egyptian citizens took care to be
as far away as possible on such occasions, not a very difficult
precautionary measure, one would believe, because pussy’s in-
stinct is to conceal herself when she is sick, as she is unable to
confront her enemies in that condition. G. A. Henty has
chosen as the central episode for his story, “ The Cat of
Bubastes,” the dilemma of an Egyptian who was inadvertently
responsible for a cat’s death. Cats were painted in fresco,
sculptured in stone, and even mummified after death. The
countless examples of these mummies in contemporary museums
bear silent witness to the veneration in which the animal was
held. There were several methods of embalming in use among
the Egyptians. Of these only the most elaborate has left its
record. The working classes might have their bodies soaked
in an antiseptic mixture and so preserved for a time, but it
was the privilege of kings and rulers alone to have their bodies
imbued with costly drugs and sweet spices and to lie unchanged
in their tombs for thousands of years until their mummied
remains were removed from their long repose. . . . The
privilege which was denied the workingman was granted to
the cat.^

* “ But the ghost or double of a body (in ancient Egypt) had to have a ma-
terial something to be the double of. The actual body was of course best; second
best was an image of it made in some lasting substance. Hence arose mummi-
fication to preserve the body, and portrait sculpture to replace it if destroyed.
In later times a wealthy Egyptian was often buried with no less than some hun-
dreds of little images in the shape of a mummy, ticketed with his name, besides
one or more really fine portrait statues of him. Such statues were called Ka
statues. If the mummy were destroyed the Ka could still be kept in existence by
means of them. . . . As with men, so with cats; they too had their Ka and all
the rest of it, and their Ka had likewise to be kept from annihilation against the
great day of resurrection of cats, crocodiles and men. A rich man’s cat was
elaborately mummied, wound round and round with stuff and cunningly plaited
with linen ribbons dyed two different colours. His head was encased in a rough
kind of papier mache, and that was covered with linen and painted, even gilt
sometimes, the ears always carefully pricked up. The mummy might be enclosed

The Tiger in the House

The fact that mummied mice have been discovered in the cat
tombs has puzzled some scientists. But in the royal tombs
food was always provided for the mummied ruler; what more
natural than to provide food for the mummied cat! . . . We
may better understand this worship of the cat if we know some-
thing of animal symbolism and credit the priests of Egypt
with having known more than we do. It is well also to bring
forward the testimony of Professor Maspero who is of the
opinion that the worship of cats among the lower middle classes
of Egypt was largely adoration of the cat herself, not of the
official god incarcerated in the animal. In support of this
belief he describes certain stelae in the museum of Turin. On
one, belonging to the age of the eighteenth dynasty, huge
figures of a cat and a swallow are painted with a table of offer-
ings before them, as well as two kneeling scribes. Accompany-
ing phylacteries state that these offerings are to the “ good
cat ” and “ good swallow,” not to any of the state gods hidden
under these forms. Further it must be taken for granted that
following each inundation of the Nile every farm became
an island on which mice, serpents, and insects flourished, from
whose depredations the farmer depended upon the cat and the
ibis to free him.

I remember a night in a villa on the Florentine hills, a

in a bronze box with a bronze Ka statue of the cat seated on the top. Even
finer burial might await a particularly grand cat. ... A poor man’s cat was
rolled up in a simple lump, but the rolling was carefully and respectfully done.”
W. M. Conway: “The Cats of Ancient Egypt”: “English Illustrated Maga-
zine ” ; Vol. 7, p. 251.

“ The cases in which the cats were placed after embalming were capital rep-
resentations of the cat in life. Many of them were of carven wood, remarkably
lifelike affairs, the form and even the individuality and expression being re-
markably preserved. . . . Some of the cat cases are curiously decorated and some
of the faces are fitted with queerly made eyes, inlaid with obsidian, or rock
crystal; others are done in coloured paste.” W. S. Harwood: “The Mummifica-
tion of Cats in Ancient Egypt”; “Scientific American”; Vol. 82, p. 361.

Tliere are several excellent examples of cat mummies, wound in linen of two
colours, Ka statues in bronze and faience, and bronze enclosing boxes in the
Metropolitan Museum in New York.

The Cat and the Occult

green Florentine night ... a dumb curiosity seized two of us
and caused us to leave our chairs on the loggia where the faint
breeze flickered the flames of the Roman lamps and the tall
bottles of golden Strega stood half-filled, to mount the stairs,
led on by a nameless questioning, and to seek the chamber di-
rectly above the spot where we had been sitting, the temporary
abode of two white Persian cats. . . . The room was empty
when we entered; the bright moonlight streaming in from the
doorway which led to a terrace which formed the roof of the
loggia told us that. Noiselessly, and apparently unreason-
ably, we stole carefully across the broad chamber and looked
out. ... I can still see the expression of horror on my com-
panion’s face, perhaps reflected on my own, as we stood just
hidden by the hangings at the doorway and saw the two cats
softly lift their paws from two white doves who rose un-
steadily, dizzily, and lazily into the green atmosphere, while
the cats rolled on their backs, stretching their claws to the
air and making faint mews. . . . Did we learn why the hawk
and the cat sit together in the temples of the Nile?

We lose sight of the cat in the early history of Greece ® but
that does not prove that she did not exist during this civiliza-
tion. Emily James Putnam, in her ironic book, points out
that the lady suffered a similar eclipse. In Rome dogs were
not permitted in the Temple of Flercules but pussies were ad-
mitted. Sacerdotal cats were welcomed even in the adytum.
The priests were wise to make a virtue of necessity; it is im-
possible to exclude cats from any place which they desire to
enter. To this day they attend Christian’ churches of any
denomination whenever they have the inclination. In Hone’s
“ Every-day Book ” there is a reference to a curious mediaeval
custom, for which credit is given to Mills’s “ History of the
Crusades: ” “ At Aix in Provence on the festival of Corpus

® Sir George Lewis thought he had proved that there were no cats in Athens,
but a vase of the best period represents a cat chasing mice.

The Tiger in the House

Christ!, the finest Tom cat of the country, wrapped like a
child in swaddling clothes, was publicly exhibited in a magnif-
icent shrine. Every knee was bent, every hand either strewed
flowers or poured incense, and, in short, the cat on this occa-
sion was treated in all respects as the god of the day.” This
curious anecdote has found wide credence and has been re-
peated in most of the cat books. A writer in the Catholic
periodical, “ The Month,” however, finds little to believe In it.®
According to this savant. King Rene of Anjou in 1472, al-
though they had been in existence long before that, formulated
a definite plan for the games of this day, theatrical interludes
between the serious religious business. Unfortunately King
Rene’s manuscript has been lost, but a full account of the
games, with curious illustrations, made just prior to the
French Revolution when the Aix procession was still unshorn
of Its splendour, still exists and it is from that that the writer
in ” The Month ” derives his information. There were,
it seems, twelve jeiix and the cat appeared in the first one,
which was called, indeed. The play of the cat: One of the

performers carried a tall staff with a gilt image of a calf on
top of it, round it were grouped some of the Israelites, while
Moses, easily recognized by his horns, and Aaron, distin-
guished by his breastplate, stood aloof and rebuked them.
However, the chief subject of popular interest was the cat.
How he came to be introduced Into the picture we can only
conjecture, but at any rate there he was. One of the per-
formers carried poor Tom in his arms, muffled up in some sort
of covering, probably to keep him from scratching. As the
scene proceeded he tossed him up as high as he could in the air,
catching him again, amid the plaudits of the crowd, with more
or less dexterity. Gregolre’s engraving represents the cat in

® “ Cats in Catholic Ritual” (signed H. T.) : “The Month,” Vol. 87, p. 487;
London, 1896. This writer asserts that the story is not to be found in “The His-
tory of the Crusades.” As I have not read this book I cannot offer corrobora-
tion of his statement.

The Cat and the Occult

the act of being tossed, and depicts the agonized expression
of the victim. “ We can readily understand that this bit of
cruel buffoonery will have been the most popular feature of
the procession,” adds the Catholic author, ” but we can only
explain the presence of poor pussy by supposing that besides the
golden calf. King Rene wished to suggest that the Israelites
had also remembered something of the animal worship of the
Egyptians. At any rate it is this sense and this sense only
that the inhabitants and priests of Aix can be described as
paying divine honours to the cat.”

The cat seems to have been at home in China from the fifth
century, A. D., and she was introduced into Japan from China
as late as the tenth century. In both these countries she
generally plays a demonaic and reprehensible part in legend
and folklore, although there are stories about cats who be-
friended mortals. Usually, however, she steals precious ob-
jects; she has the pernicious habit of producing dancing balls
of fire; she wraps a towel around her head and walks the roof-
top on her hind legs; sometimes she grows a forked tail and
thereby becomes a nekomata. When she is ten years old
she begins to talk. In China she is employed by old women
to negotiate obliquities; in Japan she destroys these beldams.
Her spiritual strength increases with age and she is able,
if she attains the proper number of years, to effect certain
transformations. This belief finds confirmation in European
folklore in which it is held that a cat twenty years old turns
into a witch, and a witch a hundred years old turns back into
a cat. Neverthless, in spite of the animal’s turpitudes, the
killing of a cat was a sin for which a heavy spiritual penalty
existed in Japan. The curse of the beast was said to fall not
only on the man himself but on his family to the seventh gener-
ation. Sometimes the cat killed the culprit; sometimes she
was satisfied to haunt him. The Persians also hesitate before
slaying a cat as Djinns or Afreets often assume feline forms
and the angry evicted demons are frequently willing to spend

The Tiger in the House

the rest of eternity haunting the person responsible for de-
stroying their dwellings. In Egypt the Arabs believe that a
Djinn takes the form of a cat when he wishes to haunt a
house and the last born of twins is capable, in order to satisfy
her desires, of turning herself into a cat. A traveller who
had killed a cat for making ravages in his storehouse at Luxor
was visited next day by a neighbouring apothecary who begged
him to kill no more cats. “ My daughter,” he explained,
“ often visits you in the form of a cat to eat your dessert.”
There is further the doctrine of metempsychosis to consider.
There was a belief held in China that one became a cat after
death. This belief caused the mighty Empress Wu to forbid
cats entrance to her palace because a court lady, whom she had
cruelly caused to be put to death, threatened to turn Her
Royal Highness into a rat and tease her as a spectre-cat.
There is a story in the “ Konjaku Monogatari ” of a man who
was terribly afraid of cats, probably because he had been a
rat in his previous existence. This belief prevailed in India,
too, of course. General Sir Thomas Edward Gordon in “ A
Varied Life” (1906) tells the following remarkable story:
“ For twenty-five years an oral addition to the written stand-
ing orders of the native guard at Government House near
Poona had been communicated regularly from one guard to
another on relief, to the effect that any cat passing out of the
front door after dark was to be regarded as His Excellency,
the Governor, and to be saluted accordingly. The meaning of
this was that Sir Robert Grant, Governor of Bombay, had
died there in 1838 and on the evening of the day of his death
a cat was seen to leave the house by the front door and walk
up and down a particular path, as it had been the Governor’s
habit to do after sunset. A Hindu sentry had observed this,
and he mentioned it to the others of his faith, who made it
a subject of superstitious conjecture, the result being that one
of the priestly class explained the mystery of the dogma of
the transmigration of the soul from one body to another, and

JAPANESE PILLAR-PRINTS CY KORIUSAI
From the collection of Arthur Davison Ficke

The Cat and the Occult

interpreted the circumstance to mean that the spirit of the de-
ceased Governor had entered into one of the house pets.

“ It was difficult to fix on a particular one, and it was there-
fore decided that every cat passing out of the main entrance
after dark was to be treated with due respect and the proper
honours. The decision was accepted without question by all
the native attendants and others belonging to Government
House. The whole guard from sepoy to sibadar, fully ac-
quiesced in it, and an oral addition was made to the standing
orders that the sentry at the front door ‘ present arms to any
cat passing out there after dark.’ ”

The orientals are more astute about cats than we are.
They ascribe to them a language, a knowledge of the future,
an extreme sensitiveness which allows them to perceive ob-
jects and beings invisible to man. They are aware that this
animal wavers on the borderland between the natural and the
supernatural, the conscious and the subconscious. They even
allow them to have ghosts. It may be said here that an
occidental clergyman has written a book to prove that ani-
mals have souls and will share our future existence. A heaven
without cats would, of course, be deserted for a hell with
them.

In Professor de Groot’s “ Religious System of China ” we
find an early story of cat sorcery. The incident occurred in
598 A. D., under the Sui Dynasty. In that year the Emperor
was about to order his brother-in-law, named Tuh-hu T’o, and
his wife to commit suicide for having employed cat-spectres
against the Empress and another lady, who had fallen ill
simultaneously. By the personal intervention of the Empress
herself and that of her younger brother they were granted
their lives, but the man was divested of all his dignities and
his wife was made a Buddhist nun. During the trial a female
slave told the judges that T’o’s mother used to sacrifice to
the cat-spectres at night, on every day of the rat. Whenever
^ Rev. J. G. Wood: “Man and Beast: Here and Hereafter.’’

The Tiger in the House

a cat-spectre murdered a victim the possessions of the dead
man transferred themselves automatically to the house where
the beast was kept. T’o had commanded her, so the slave
testified, to make the cat-spectre enter the palace in order to
secure valuable presents from the Empress. When the
judges had heard this confession they ordered the woman to
call the spectre back, whereupon setting out a bowl of fragrant
rice-gruel, and drumming against it with a spoon, she ex-
claimed, ‘ Come, pussy, remain no longer in the palace.’
After a time her face turned blue and moving as if driven by
some unseen force, she muttered, ‘ Here is the cat-spectre.’
In the same year the Emperor ordered all families keeping
cat-spectres to be banished to the farthest frontier regions.
This act seems entirely consistent with modern governmental
procedure. De Groot also tells of a hag who tormented a
child and made it cry incessantly at night. She did this riding
on her cat, that is on its soul as a spectral horse, but was dis-
covered and routed by an exorcist. The cat was beaten to
death and the hag starved, whereupon the child became ap-
peased and stopped crying. The result seems worthy of al-
most any means.

The domestic cat was imported from China into Japan in
the reign of the Emperor Ichigo (986—1011). The animal
was at first a rare and high-priced luxury and consequently only
the noble families could afford to keep it. How much the
Emperor himself liked cats we may learn from the “ 0-u-ki ”
and the “ Makura no soshi.” The former book states that

on the nineteenth day of the ninth month of the year 999 a
cat brought forth young in the palace. The left and right
ministers had the task of bringing up the kittens, and pre-
pared boxes (with delicacies) and rice and clothes for them
(as for newborn babes). Uma no myobu, a court lady, was
appointed wet-nurse for the kittens. The people laughed at
the matter and were rather astonished.” The attitude of the
people does not seem to be unusual or surprising. The Em-

The Cat and the Occult

peror further bestowed the fifth rank (that of the court
ladies) on a cat in the palace and gave her the name, Mydbu
no Omoto (Omoto, the lady-in-waiting).

But poor puss, who began her life in Japan as a pampered
pet, the favourite of the court, in less than three centuries
began to be associated with demons in the popular mind.
In the “ Kokonchomonshu ” ( 1254) there is a tale of a Budd-
hist Archbishop who received a visit from a beautiful Chinese
cat, who came, like Melisande and Mr. Warner’s Calvin, ap-
parently from nowhere. The Archbishop was vastly diverted
by the antics of the graceful animal, who liked to play with a
ball and was very skilful at the game. One day, by way
of jest, the priest substituted a precious mamori-sword (a
sacred sword with protective magical powers) for the ball.
The cat seized it in her mouth, ran away, and was never seen
again. “ She was,” remarks the author solemnly, “ probably
a transformed demon, who by taking the protective sword
could more easily attack people.”

In the “ Yamato Kwai-i ki ” ( 1708) there is an account of
the strange happenings in the house of a samurai. At night,
luminous balls, which no one could catch, bounded about the
rooms, about three inches from the floor. Once a group of
these mysterious balls illuminated a tree. The maid-servants
were attacked by spirits in their sleep; one of them especially
was troubled by demons. Her spinning-wheel turned of its
own volition and her pillow circled as if on a pivot while she
slept. In vain she sought relief from sorceresses, Shinto
priests, yamabushi, and Buddhist priests; neither their charms
nor their prayers assisted her. At last the master of the
house saw a very old cat walking on his hind legs on the roof,
with a towel belonging to tbe maid-servant bound round his
head.® A slave brought down the cat with an arrow and the

® Pierre Loti found the following in a rare old Japanese hook: “line cer-
taine nuit de chaque h'ver, les chats tiennent, dans quelque jard'tn hole, une
grande assemblee qui se termine par une ronde generale au clair de lune.” Vient

The Tiger in the House

house was no longer haunted. The animal was five shaku
long and its tail was split (nekomata).

The “ Mimi-bukuro ” (1815) introduces us to talking cats,
which occur in other oriental and mediaeval tales. In 1795,
it seems, a cat observed, “What a pity! ” when his master,
the abbot of a monastery, frightened away some doves for
which he had been lying in wait. The abbot seized tbe cat
and threatened him in this manner: “ It is very strange that

you, an animal, can speak. You can certainly transform your-
self and haunt mankind. As you have spoken once you must
speak again; otherwise I shall break tbe commandment to
spare all living beings and kill you.” Whereupon puss re-
plied in stately periods: “ We cats are not the only creatures

who can speak; all creatures are able to do so when they are
more than ten years old. When they reach the age of twenty-
four or five they can also change themselves in a miraculous
way but no cat ever reaches that age. A cat who is a cross
between a fox and a cat can speak before the age of ten.”
At the conclusion of this lesson in unnatural history the good
abbot reported himself satisfied and gave the cat leave to
remain in the monastery, but grimalkin took his departure
with three ceremonious bows and was never seen again.

So late as 1875 a man of Toulon informed Berenger-Feraud
that one of his friends had owned a wizard cat who was ac-
customed to take an active part in the evening conversation,
at least when it was sufficiently interesting to keep him awake.
His mistress consulted him before making plans, giving her
reasons for taking one course or another, and she invariably
followed the cat’s advice. The animal stated his preferences
for meat or fish and was very indignant when his wishes were

ensuite, continues Loti, cette clause adorable, que je recommande a I’altention de
Jules Lemaitre et de tous ceux qtii sont assez affines pour comprendre le charme
des chats: “Pour etre admis a cette reunion, tout chat est tenu de se procurer

un fichu ou un mouchoir de soie dont il se coiffe pour danser.” “ Japoneries
d’Automne,” p. 150.

A JAPANESE FANTASY

From CliampHeury’s Les Chats

The Cat and the Occult

not respected. From time to time he disappeared for several
days and the members of the household believed that he took
human form during these absences. When he lay at the point
of death he prayed that his body might be decently buried.
His mistress not daring to inter him in a grave prepared for
a human being, laid the coffin behind the cemetery wall adjac-
ent to a Christian tomb and at the funeral the cat’s soul was
recommended to the care of his Creator. The fabulists all
ask the cat to speak and the Cheshire Cat in “ Alice in Won-
derland ” is as epigrammatic as an Oscar Wilde duchess. “ If
we had not in our intercourse with human beings acquired a
certain contempt for speech we could all speak,” says Hinze
the Tom Cat in Ludwig Tieck’s delightful play, Der Ges-
tiefelte Kater.

In the middle ages cats attended witches’ revels, went to
the Sabbath, and frequently shared the fate of the witch,
which was to be drowned or toasted alive. Many witches
about to be burned confessed that they had often taken the
shapes of cats,

Chatte dans le ]our, la nuit elle est femme,

and these confessions stimulated the persecution of the feline
race. It must also be remembered that in the middle ages
cats, like other animals were moral agents and could be sued
or criminally tried. Trials of this sort were not rare. Again
the Roman Church claimed full power to anathematize all
animate and inanimate things. Doubtless these facts, added
to the gleaming eyes and generally mysterious nature of the
cat, her inexplicable disappearances and appearances, made it
very easy for the judges to believe the witches’ confessions.
“ What explanation can be given of the evil repute of our
household friend the cat? ” asks Moncure Daniel Conway.’’
“ Is it derived by inheritance from its fierce ancestors of the

® “ Demonology and Devil-Lore.”

The Tiger in the House

jungle? Was it first suggested by its horrible human-like,
sleep-murdering caterwaulings at night? Or has it simply
suffered from a theological curse on the cats said to draw
the chariot of the goddess of beauty?” The sceptic Fon-
tenelle told Moncrif that he had been brought up to believe
that all the cats in town went to the Sabbath on the eve of
Saint John’s day. Therefore the peasants, in order to rid the
country of sorcerers, threw all the cats they could catch into
the fire on this day. Cats play a part in the horrid masonic
rites described by Dr. Bataille in his “ Le Diabfe au XIX
Siecle.” The she-cat is one of a dozen animals to which
Dante compares his demons. Mgr. Leon Maurin, once Arch-
bishop at Port Luis in Mauritius, writes about the sacrifices
of cats by devil-worshippers at midnight on the altars of rifled
churches. The devil, himself, indeed, frequently borrowed
the black robe of a cat, for bad cats are usually black, as good
cats are usually white. The worthy Pere Bougeant writes:
" Les betes ne sont qiie des diahles et a la tete de ces diables
marclie le chat” Saint Dominique, when he preached of the
devil, described him as a cat. The large green or topaze
fixed eyes of the inky felines contributed to the stability of
the legend. There were spectre-cats, ” familiars,” but most
often the cat was the pythoness herself in animal form. We
still celebrate the union of cats and witches on Hallowe’en.
How were these cat demons raised? Cornelius Agrippa in
his “Occult Philosophy” (1651) says that if “Coriander,
smallage, henbane and hemlock be made a fume, spirits will
presently come together, hence they are called the spirit herbs.
Also it is said that a fume made of the root of herb sagapen
with the juice of hemlock and henbane, and the herb tapsus
barbatus, red sanders and black poppy make spirits and strange
shapes appear. Moreover it is said that by certain fumes
certain animals are gathered together. . . .” In the “ Con-
jurers’ Magazine ” (1791) there is to be found a recipe “ to
draw cats together and fascinate them ” : “ In the new moon,

The Cat and the Occult

gather the herb Nepe, and dry it in the heat of the sun, when
it is temperately hot. Gather vervain in the hour ^ and only
expose it to the air while O is under the earth. Hang these
together in a net, in a convenient place, and when one of
them has scented it, her cry will soon call those about her that
are within hearing; and they will rant and run about, leaping
and capering to get at the net, which must be placed so that
they cannot easily accomplish it, for they will certainly tear
it to pieces.” There must be other recipes in the “ Grimorium
Verum,” the ” Grimoire of Pope Honorius ” and the “ Grand
Grimoire.” But when a witch wanted to transform herself
into a cat she rubbed herself with a certain ointment. This
art, along with that of polishing intaglios, seems to be lost.

The Taigheirm was an infernal magical sacrifice of cats, the
origin of which lies in remote pagan times, in rites dedicated
to the subterranean gods, from whom particular gifts and
benefits were solicited by nocturnal offerings. The word it-
self, in Gaelic, signifies the invocation of the house. Through
Christianity these sacrifices were modified and were offered
now to the infernal powers, or as they were called in the
Highlands and the Western Isles of Scotland, the Black-Cat
Spirits.

According to Horst’s “ Deuteroscopy ” black cats were in-
dispensable to the incantation ceremony of the Taigheirm, and
as will presently appear, plenty of black cats. These were
dedicated to the gods of the lower world or later to the foul
demons of Christianity. The midnight hour between Friday
and Saturday was the authentic time for these horrible prac-
tices and invocations to begin; the ceremony was protracted
for four days and nights, during which period the operator
was forbidden to sleep or to take nourishment.

” After the cats were dedicated to all the devils, and put
into a magico-sympathetic condition by the shameful things
done to them, and the agony occasioned them, one of them was
at once put on the spit, and amid terrific bowlings, roasted

The Tiger in the House

before a slow fire. The moment that the howls of one tor-
tured cat ceased in death, another was put upon the spit, for
a minute of interval must not continue if an agent would con-
trol hell; and this must continue for four entire days and
nights, if the exorcist could hold out, still longer, and even if
till his physical powers were absolutely exhausted, he must do
so. After a time infernal spirits appeared in the shape of
black cats. There came continually more and more of these
cats and their howling mingled with that of those roasting on
the spit was terrific. Finally a cat of monstrous size appeared
with dreadful threats. The gift of second sight was usually
the recompense of the Taigheirm.”

One of the last Taigheirm, according to Horst, was held
in the middle of the seventeenth century in the Island of Mull.
The spot is still marked where Allan Maclean, at that time
the sacrificial priest, stood with his assistant, Lachlain Mac-
lean. He continued his sacrifices to the fourth day when he
was exhausted in mind and body and sank into a swoon.

The infernal spirits appeared, some in the early progress of
the sacrifices, in the shape of black cats. The first, glared at
the sacrificers and cried, “ Lachlain Oer ” (Injurer of Cats).
Allan, the chief operator, warned Lachlain that he must not
waver but must keep the spit turning incessantly whatever he
might see or hear. At the end of the second day a monster
cat arrived with a horrid howl and assured Lachlain Oer that
if he did not cease putting pussies on the spit before their
largest brother arrived he would never see the face of God.

John Gregorson Campbell in “ Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands
of Scotland” describes the Taigheirm as a “devil’s supper” and he says that
tradition in the West Highlands makes mention of three instances of this per-
formance, all of which are similar: Allan the cattle-lifter (Ailein nan creach)

at Dail-a-chat (subsequently called The Cats’ Field) in Lochaber; Dun Lachlain
in the big barn at Pennygoun in Mull; and the Children of Quithen, a small
sept at Skye in a cave. The night of the day I first learned of the Taigheirm
I dined with some friends who were also entertaining Seumas, Chief of Clann
Fhearghuis of Stra-chur, who informed me that to the best of his knowledge the
Taigheirm is still celebrated in the Highlands of Scotland.

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The Cat and the Occult

“ Bring on all the devils of hell and I will not stop until I
have completed my work,” cried Lachlain. At the end of the
fourth day a hlack cat with fire flaming from his eyes perched
on the end of a beam in the roof of the barn and his howl
could be heard quite across the straits of Mull into Morven.
One is not surprised to learn that on the last day Allan was
wholly exhausted by the apparitions and could only utter the
word “ Prosperity ” before he became unconscious. But Lach-
lain was still self-possessed and able to continue. He de-
manded prosperity and wealth. Both got what they asked
for. It might be added that men of such nerve should be able
to get anything they wanted on earth.

On his death bed Allan informed his friends that if he
and Lachlain (who had died before him) had lived a little
longer they would have driven Satan from his throne. When
Allan’s funeral cortege reached the churchyard those persons
endowed with second sight saw at some distance Lachlain
Oer, standing fully armed at the head of a band of black cats,
from which streamed the odour of brimstone.

In some old French records an account is given of how a man
buried a black cat at a spot where four cross-roads met. In
the box with the cat he placed bread soaked in holy water and
holy oil, sufficient to keep the animal alive for three days. His
intention was to dig up his innocent victim, slay him, and make
a girdle of his skin, by which means he expected to be able to
transform himself into an animal and gain the gift of clairvoy-
ance. Unfortunately for his projects, however, the buried
puss was exhumed by hounds. The affair thus came to public
knowledge and ended in the courts where the guilty man was
condemmed for sorcery and probably subsequently burned at
the stake.

One of the mediaeval grimoires gives a curious recipe by
means of which a sorcerer might make himself invisible, in
which a black cat again is the central figure: “ Steal a black

cat, buy a new pot, a mirror, a piece of flint, an agate, char-
iot

The Tiger in the House

coal, and a tinder; draw water from a fountain at the exact
hour of midnight; after that light your fire, put the cat in the
pot, and hold the cover with the left hand without moving
or looking behind you, whatever noise you may hear, and after
it has boiled for twenty-four hours, always without moving or
looking behind you, put the mess into a new dish, taking the
meat and throwing it over the left shoulder, repeating these
words: Accipe quod tihi do et nihil ampUiis. Then crunch

the bones one after the other, under the teeth, from the left
side, looking at yourself in the mirror, and walk backwards.”
When Sir Walter Scott was a young man he went to see
that curious being, the Black Dwarf, “ bowed David Ritchie,”
in his den, a gloomy bit of hut. After they had sat together
for a while the dwarf, glancing at Scott, asked, ” Man, ha’ ye
ony poo’r? ” meaning of course, supernatural power. Scott
disclaimed any gift of the sort. The dwarf then stretched
his finger out to a corner, where for the first time Scott be-
came aware that a green-eyed black cat was sitting, staring at
him. As the dwarf extended his finger towards the cat he cried,
“ He has poo’r,” and Scott admitted that a strange feeling of
awe and terror crept over him. A century or two earlier
bowed David and his cat would have broken on the wheel. In
1607 a witch bearing the name of Isobel Grierson was burned
at the stake after having been accused and convicted of enter-
ing the house of one Adam Clark in Prestonpans in, the like-
ness of the man’s own pet cat and in the company of a mighty
rabble of other cats, who by their noise frightened Adam, his
wife, and their servant, the last-named being dragged up and
down the stairs by the hair of her head, presumably by the
devil in the shape of a black man. Isobel also visited the
house of a certain Mr. Brown in the shape of a cat, but being
called by name she vanished, not, however, before she had
caused him to fall ill of a disease of which he afterwards died.
And Alice Duke, alias Manning, of Wincanton in Somerset,
who was tried in 1664 for witchcraft, confessed that her

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familiar visited her “ in the shape of a little cat of dunnish
colour, which is as smooth as a want ” and that “ her familiar
doth commonly suck her right breast about seven at night ”
after which she fell into a kind of trance. Any book on
witches will furnish a score of such examples and almost all
of them give a long account of the famous Rutterkin case,
which has likewise been retold so frequently in books about
cats that I will not repeat it here. In a story called “ Ancient
Sorceries ” Algernon Blackwood has utilized the theme in
fiction.^^ Arthur Vezin, an Englishman travelling in France,
descended with his bag at some way station intending to pass
the night. As the train moved slowly away one of his com-
panions in the compartment, a stranger, leaned out of the
window and whispered into his ear a long sentence of which
he was only able to catch the last few words, a cause de
sonuneil et a cause de chats.” Vezin at once began to notice
“ the extraordinary silence of the whole place. Positively the
town was muffled. Although the streets were paved with
cobbles the people moved about silently, softly, with padded
feet, like cats. Nothing made noise. All was hushed, sub-
dued, muted. The very voices were quiet, low-pitched like
purring. Nothing clamorous, vehement, or emphatic seemed
able to live in the drowsy atmosphere of soft dreaming that
soothed this little hill-town into its sleep. It was like the
woman at the inn — an outward repose screening intense Inner
activity and purpose. Yet there was no sign of lethargy or
sluggishness anywhere about It. The people were active and
alert. Only a magical and uncanny softness lay over them
like a spell.”

Presently Vezin had the feeling that he was being spied
upon and ” he began to see how it was that he was so cleverly
watched yet without the appearance of It. The people did
nothing directly. They behaved obliquely. . . . They looked
at him from angles which naturally should have led their

“ John Silence.”

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The Tiger in the House

sight In another direction altogether. Their movements were
oblique, too, so far as these concerned himself. The straight,
direct thing was not their way evidently. They did nothing
obviously. If he entered a shop to buy, the woman walked
instantly away and busied herself with something at the farther
end of the counter, though answering at once when he spoke,
shov/ing that she knew he was there and that this was only her
way of attending to him. It was the fashion of the cat she
followed. Even in the dining-room of the inn, the be-
whiskered and courteous waiter, lithe and silent in all his
movements, never seemed able to come straight to his table
for an order or a dish. He came by zigzags, indirectly,
vaguely, so that he appeared to be going to another table
altogether, and only turned suddenly at the last moment, and
was there beside him.” At length, the daughter of the
keeper of the inn returned, a beautiful, panther-like creature;
she brushed past Vezin in a dark hallway, with the touch of
kitten’s fur, and awakened in him a most intense passion.
And it was from her that he learned the secret of the town, the
consecration of its folk to the ancient sorceries. He joined her
and her mother In a wild but stealthily noiseless dance on
the flagstones of the courtyard of the inn, and then In terror
fled to his room, from whence he saw the inhabitants of the
town In the guise of cats climbing from the windows, over the
roofs, and leaping to the streets below. Rushing into the open
he met the girl who cried: ” ‘ Transform, Transform! . . .

Rub well your skin before you fly. Come ! Come with me to
the Sabbath, to the madness of its furious delight, to the sweet
abandonment of Its evil worship! See! the Great Ones are
there, and the terrible Sacraments prepared. The throne is
occupied. Anoint and come ! Anoint and come ! ’ She
grew to the height of a tree beside him, leaping upon the wall
with flaming eyes and hair strewn upon the night. He too
began to change swiftly. Her hands touched the skin of his
face and neck, streaking him with the burning salve that sent

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The Cat and the Occult

the old magic into his blood with the power before which fades
all that is good. A wild roar came up to his ears from the
heart of the wood, and the girl, when she heard it, leaped upon
the wall in the frenzy of her wicked joy. ‘ Satan is there ! ’
she screamed, rushing upon him and striving to draw him with
her to the edge of the wall. ‘ Satan has come ! The Sacra-
ments call us! Come, with your dear apostate soul, and we
will worship and dance till the moon dies and the world is for-
gotten.’ ”

In the old tales human beings frequently assumed the form
of cats in order the better to carry on their turpitudes. The
transformation was usually accomplished, as in Blackwood’s
story, by the application of a magic salve. In these stories
the phenomenon of repercussion is the most interesting feature.
It was the belief that if you injured an animal inhabited by a
witch spirit when she regained human form she still bore the
marks of the injury. Variations of the belief in repercussion
occur in the folk-tales of every language and evidence of re-
percussion was frequently introduced at witches’ trials. A
woodman whose dinner was stolen from him daily by a cat
made many attempts to put an end to these depredations. At
last, catching pussy in the act, he chopped off one of her paws,
and when he returned home he observed, to his horror, that
his wife had lost one of her hands. There is the similar tale
of the Swabian soldier who used to visit the young woman to
whom he was betrothed every evening when he was off duty.
But on one occasion the girl warned him that he must never
come to her on Friday because it was not convenient for her
to see him then. His suspicions were accordingly aroused
and the very next Friday night he set out for his sweetheart’s
bouse. On the way a white cat dogged his steps and as the
animal become importunate he drew his sword and slashed
off one of her hind paws, whereupon she ran away. Arriving
at the girl’s house he found her in bed and when he asked her
what was the matter she gave a very confused reply. Noting

I OS

The Tiger in the House

stains of blood on the white coverlet he drew it back and saw
that his betrothed was bathed in blood for one of her feet had
been chopped off. “ Witch ! ” he cried and left her. In three
days she was dead.^^ There is further the history of the
woman of Ceyreste whose children were always ailing, a state
of affairs for which there was no natural way of accounting.
A neighbour told her that she thought her mother-in-law
might be responsible. “ She may be a witch.” The woman
spoke to her husband and they determined to watch the cradles
of their offspring. That very night observing a black cat
crawling over the side of the baby’s crib, the man struck the
animal a violent blow with a club. With a howl the beast
sprang through the open window and vanished. The mother-
in-law had been in the habit of paying daily visits to her son’s
family but the next day she did not appear, nor yet the next.
After a few days her son went to see her and found her in a
bad temper with her hand bandaged. In response to his
query as to why she had not come to his house as usual she
replied in a rage: “ Look at the state of my fingers. What-

ever should I come to your house for? If I had been struck
by a hatchet instead of a stick my hand would have been cut
off and I would have had nothing but a stump.” One more:
the witches of Vernon in the shape of cats inhabited an
ancient castle. Three or four men determined to pass the
night in this castle; they were attacked by the cats and many
wounds were exchanged. Afterwards the women returned
to their human forms and were found to be suffering from
corresponding gashes.

It seems rather surprising that Arthur Machen has not
touched upon the repercussion phenomenon in any of his
mystic masterpieces. Again we must turn to Algernon Black-
wood, this time to his story, “ The Empty Sleeve.” The

12 Ernst Meier; “ Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebrauche aus Schwaben”;
Stuttgart, 1852.

13 “ The London Magazine”; January 1911.

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The Cat and the Occult

violinist Hyman “ believed that there was some fluid portion
of a man’s personality which could be projected to a distance,
and even semimaterialized there. The ‘ astral body,’ he
called it, or some such foolishness, claiming that it could appear
in various forms, according to its owner’s desire, even in
animal forms.” John Gilmer was awakened one night by a
noise In the flat; seizing a Turkish sword from the wall he
entered the sitting room where he saw a moving figure. The
encounter and terror of both beings in the dark Is described,
and as the creature, which John finally recognized as an
enormous cat, fled, John struck it with his weapon, almost
severing one of the front legs from the body. Months
afterwards the Gilmers met Hyman wearing spectacles and a
beard. William pointed out to his brother the difference.

“ ‘ But didn’t you notice — ’

‘What?’

‘ He had an empty sleeve.’

‘ Yes,’ said William. ‘ He’s lost an arm! ’ ”

The supernatural plays a part in many other stories. On
the twenty-sixth of March, 1782 (it is remarkable how many
such miracles are carefully dated) a gentleman of wealth con-
sulted Count Cagliostro, In an attempt to discover If his wife,
who was young and beautiful, had been unfaithful to him.
Cagliostro assured the anxious husband that the proof was a
simple one and gave him a phial of liquid which he Instructed
him to drink before going to bed. “ If your wife has broken
her vows,” he added, “ you will be transformed into a cat.”
The husband returned home and told his wife the whole
story; she laughed at his credulity but he swallowed the
draught and went to bed. Rising early, the lady left him
sleeping, but later as he did not appear, went to seek him,
when to her astonishment she found in his place a huge black
cat. She screamed, called out her husband’s name, and finally
knelt at the foot of the bed and begged for pardon, confessing
that she had committed a sin with a handsome young soldier

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The Tiger in the House

who had cajoled her by means of tears and tales of heroic
deeds to forget her marriage vows. A story known as
“ The Devil’s Cat ” is current in North Germany: A peasant

owned three beautiful cats. A neighbour begged one of these
from him and obtained her. To accustom her to her new home
he shut her up in the loft. At night, puss, popping her head
out of the window, asked, “What shall I bring tonight?”
“ Thou shalt bring mice,” answered the man. The cat set
to work, casting all she caught on the floor till the loft was so
full of dead mice that it was almost impossible to open the
door and the man was employed the entire day in throwing
them away by bushels. That night again the cat put her head
through the window and asked, “ What shall I bring tonight? ”
“ Thou shalt bring rye,” answered the farmer. In the morn-
ing the loft was stacked with rye. The man now saw the
true nature of the cat and carried her back to his neighbour,
“ for had he given her work the third time he could never
have gotten rid of her.” His mistake, of course, was in not
asking for gold on the second night.

It is her unusually fine nervous system, her electricity, which
made the cat useful to the sorcerer, and this same nervous
system, her extreme sensitiveness and susceptibility often en-
able her to perform seeming miracles. In the year 1783 two
cats belonging to a merchant of Messina warned him of the ap-
proach of an earthquake. Before the first shock they tried
to scratch their way through the floor of a room in which they
were confined. Their master, observing their fruitless efforts,
opened the door for them. At two other closed doors they
continued to exhibit symptoms of frantic terror and when
finally set at liberty they ran swiftly through the town and
made for the open fields where they began to dig. The earth-
quake destroyed the house they had left and several surround-
ing it but the merchant who, filled with curiosity over the
strange behaviour of the cats, had followed them, was saved.
This story has a perfectly natural explanation: the extremely

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The Cat and the Occult

sensitive nervous organization of the cats was affected by
the seismic disturbances long before they registered on the
infinitely coarser nervous system of man, who if he ever pos-
sessed these finer perceptions has almost completely lost them,
except in isolated cases. Earthquakes do not occur with
sufficient frequency to obtain much evidence in this direction,
but cases in which cats have warned householders of fires,
sometimes saving many lives thereby, are numberless.

Cats have some uncanny fashion of reckoning time. A
London barrister, one of the staff of a well-known provincial
newspaper, told Lindsay that his cat was accustomed to meet
him regularly on a certain road on his way home from his
office. There is an infallible method by which you can test
your own cat in this respect. Feed him regularly at a certain
hour each day for a few weeks and thereafter, if you have
no clock in the house, he will inform you himself when the
hour arrives. Alexandre Dumas relates a story of a clair-
voyant cat which goes even further.^^ His Mysouff used to
accompany him from his home in the Rue de I’Ouest every
morning as far as the Rue de Vaugirard and wait for him
every evening at the same point. “ The curious thing was
that, on such days as some chance circumstance or casual in-
vitation tempted me to break my dutiful habits as a son and
I was not going back to dine at home, Mysouff, though the
door was opened for his exit as usual, positively refused to
go out, and lay motionless on his cushion, in the posture of a
serpent biting his own tail. It was quite different on days
when I meant to return punctually. Then, if they forgot
to open the door for him, Mysouff would scratch at it per-
sistently with his claws till he got what he wanted.” When
Avery Hopwood visits his country-house he is accustomed to
take his cat with him in his automobile. Abelard sleeps peace-

For a particularly good example see “Lady Jule” by Francis Wilson;
“Ladies’ Home Journal”; November 1902.

“ Mes Betes.”

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The Tiger in the House

fully during most of the journey, but invariably as the motor
ascends a certain hill, a quarter of a mile from the house, he
gets up and begins to stretch himself.

Cats in many quarters of the globe are held responsible
for the weather; they are actually said to make it good or bad.
In other localities they are regarded as competent barometers.
This is not strange when it is remembered that cats are
extraordinarily sensitive to the changes of temperature, while
by storms they are sometimes affected almost to the point of
madness. Colette Willy, who has more delicately expressed
the psychology of cats than almost any one else. In one of her
dialogues called, “ I’Orage,” gives us what may very well
be an accurate vision of a cat’s mind during a hot summer
tempest. Kiki-la-Doucette is speaking to Toby-Chlen; “I
have a headache. Do you not perceive under the nearly bare
skin of my temples, under my bluish and transparent skin of an
animal of fine breeding, the beating of my arteries? It is
terrible ! Around my forehead my veins are like vipers in
convulsions and I do not know what gnome is forging in my
brain. O, be silent, or at least speak so softly that the cours-
ing of my agitated blood will cover your words.” Again,
“The storm is here. Gods! how I suffer! If I could only
quit this skin and this fur which smother me, if I could only
turn myself inside out, naked as a skinned mouse, towards the
freshness ! O dog, you cannot see but I feel the sparks which
crackle at the tip of each of my hairs. Do not come near me:
I am about to send forth a bolt of blue flame. . . .” Pres-
ently the dog describes her: “ You are changed. Cat! Your

drawn figure is that of a starved creature, and your hair, like
burnished metal here, ruffled there, gives you the pitiful ap-
pearance of a weasel which has fallen Into oil.” And when
the Lady approaches, Kiki mutters, “ If she touches me I will
devour her.” Pierquin de Gembloux describes a different

“ Sept Dialogues de Betes.”

It “Traite de la Folie des Anlmaux.”

I lO

The Cat and the Occult

reaction to the effect of a storm in which a surplus of electri-
city in the air, a state of high electrical tension, sometimes
produces hilarity, gaiety, noisiness, amounting occasionally to
a kind of joyous mania, a morbid exuberance of animal spirits,
especially in young cats.

This strange behaviour of cats during atmospheric changes
has disturbed the imaginations of many peoples at many times.
If a cat tears at cushions or carpets or is generally uneasy
she is said to be raising a wind. This superstition is still
widely prevalent in seacoast towns, on Cape Cod and else-
where. Idle terrors of this character all have for a basis the
science of divination, which neglects no token, but from effects
overlooked by the ignorant ascends through a sequence of
interlinked causes. This science knows, for example, that
atmospheric conditions which cause a dog to howl are fatal
to certain sufferers, that the monotonous wheeling of ravens,
who frequent localities of murder and execution, in the air
means the presence of unburied bodies. The flight of other
birds prognosticates a hard winter, while others are haru-
spices of coming storms. It may even be stated categorically
that the superstition that it is unlucky to walk under a ladder
is based on an accident that has befallen some one who has
done so. Perhaps the hod-carrier on the ladder has dropped
a brick on his head. On that which the mystic discerns
ignorance remarks and generalizes. The first sees useful
warnings everywhere, the second is terrified by everything.
As a matter of fact the cat with her superior nervous organism
is conscious of the approach of the wind before man is and the
condition of her fur alone will indicate weather changes to the
careful observer.

It Is a common notion that the weather will change if a cat
sneezes, scratches the leg of a table, or sits with her tail to the
fire. Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of the author of
“ The Origin of Species,” in a poem, ” Signs of Foul Weather,”
notes the behaviour of the cat at the approach of a storm.

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The Tiger in the House

Puss on the hearth, with velvet paws.

Sits wiping o’er his whiskered jaws.

“ She useth,” writes John Swan, in his “ Speculum Mundi ”
(Cambridge, 1634), “therefore to wash her face with her
feet, which she licketh and moiseneth with her tongue; and it
is observed by some that if she put her feet beyond the crown
of her head in this kind of washing, it is a sign of rain.” In
his “ Hesperides ” Herrick refers to this belief:

True calendars as pusses eare,

IV asli t o’er to tell what change is neare.

But there is another old English saying which has it that
when the cat wipes her face over her ears it is a sign of fine
weather and when a cat sits with her back towards the fire it
is a sign of frost. Willsford remarks quaintly enough:
“ Cats coveting the fire more than ordinary or licking their feet
or trimming the hair of their heads and mustachios presages a
storm.” There is something in the superstition assuredly.
Moncrif noticed that cats opened or closed their fur accord-
ing to the weather and I have observed that cats lick their fur
more than ordinarily in an atmosphere surcharged with mois-
ture, just as they dry themselves with their tongues when they
get wet. But cats always wash their faces after dinner, fol-
lowing the custom of the Romans rather than that of the
Americans in this respect. A folk-tale has it that a cat caught
a sparrow who observed, “ No gentleman eats before wash-
ing his face.” The cat relinquished his hold on the bird to
prove himself a gentleman and the sparrow flew away. Since
that date cats have found it wiser to wash after dinner.
They also wash themselves to sleep. “ Oh ! that all females
made as good use of their tongues,” apostrophizes one Isobel
Hill. If a cat’s washing indicates bad weather, failure to do
so indicates a sick cat. “ The cat cleans her face with a look

1 12

MINETTE WASHES

From a drawing by Gottfried Mind

The Cat and the Occult

of delight ” is the phrase of John Clare. My Feathers puts
her paw over her crown rain or shine. Who has described the
operation more delightfully than Leigh Hunt? “ Pussy . . .
symbolically gives a twist of a yawn, and a lick to her whiskers.
Now she proceeds to clean herself all over, having a just sense
of the demands of her elegant person, — beginning judiciously
with her paws, and fetching amazing tongues at her hind-hips.
Anon, she scratches her neck with a foot of rapid delight;
leaning her head towards it, and shutting her eyes, half to ac-
commodate the action of the skin, and half to enjoy the luxury.
She then rewards her paws with a few more touches; look
at the action of her head and neck, how pleasing it is, the
ears pointed forward, and the neck gently arching to and fro !
Finally she gives a sneeze, and another twist of mouth and
whiskers, and then, curling her tail towards her front claws,
settles herself on her hind quarters, in an attitude of bland
meditation.”

The cat’s relation to the weather is recognized in these
United States, although different districts are not in agree-
ment as to the meaning of the signs. In Eastern Kansas a
cat washing her face before breakfast foretells rain; in New
England a cat washes her face in the parlor before a shower;
in Western Maine rain is assured if the cat scratches a fence.
It is held also in Western Maine that when a cat is sharpening
her claws the way her tail points shows the direction in which
the wind will blow the next day. In Eastern Massachusetts
the face of the washing cat points toward the direction from
which the wind will blow. In New York and Pennsylvania
the mere washing of the face signifies clear weather. If you
see a cat looking out of the window you may be certain that
it will storm soon, according to the inhabitants of Central
Maine, where there must be continual storms because a cat in
the house will spend half the day gazing, out of the window.
The belief in Cambridge, Massachussetts, that if the fur shines

II3

The Tiger in the House

and looks glossy it is a sign that it will be pleasant the follow-
ing day is credibled^

The belief held in Scilly Cove, Newfoundland, that a cat
drowning in salt-water will bring on rain is directly in line
with certain precepts of ceremonial magic. According to
W. W. Skeat if a Malay woman puts an inverted earthen-
ware pan upon her head and then, setting it on the ground,
fills it with water and washes a cat in it till the animal is
nearly drowned, heavy rain will certainly follow. In this per-
formance the inverted bowl is intended to symbolize the vault
of heaven. A similar custom prevails in Java where usually
two cats are bathed, a male and a female. Sometimes the
animals are carried in procession with music. In Batavia,
also children carry cats around for this purpose. After duck-
ing them in pools they release them. In Southern Celebes the
inhabitants attempt to create a shower by carrying a cat tied
in a sedan chair thrice around the parched fields, while they
drench him with bamboo squirts. When the cat mews they
cry, “ O Lord, let rain fall upon us! ” In a village of Su-
matra to procure rain the women wade into the river, and
splash one another. A black cat is thrown in and made to
swim, and then is allowed to escape pursued by splashing
women.

Other superstitions surround the cat. “ In the eyes of the
superstitious,” writes Mr. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, “ there is
scarcely a movement of the cat which is not supposed to have
some significance.” If a cat jumps over a coffin she must be
killed or great misfortune is sure to follow. The Chinese be-
lieve that a cat can cause the dead to rise in this manner.
As this would frequently prove awkward to the heirs and
assigns cats are kept as far as possible from dead people in
China. In case, however, the accident occurs it becomes nec-

1® These examples are from Fanny D. Bergen’s “Animal and Plant Lore,
collected from the oral tradition of English speaking people.”

19 “ Malay Magic.”

The Cat and the Occult

essary to swat the resurrected dead man with a broom where-
upon he will become recumbent again. “ My name,” de-
clares the sorrowful vampire in James Branch Cabell’s incom-
parable “ Jurgen,” ” is Florimel, because my nature no less
than my person was as beautiful as the flowers of the field and
as sweet as the honey which the bees (who furnish us with
such admirable examples of industry) get out of these flowers.
But a sad misfortune changed all this. For I chanced one
day to fall ill and die (which, of course, might happen to
anyone), and as my funeral was leaving the house the cat
jumped over my coffin. That was a terrible misfortune to be-
fall a poor girl so generally respected, and in wide demand
as a seamstress; though, even then, the worst might have been
averted had not my sister-in-law been of what they call a
humane disposition and foolishly attached to the cat. So they
did not kill it, and I, of course, became a vampire.” Another
superstition has it that if a cat jumps over a corpse the soul
of the deceased enters its body. There is a reference to this
superstition of the cat and the dead in ” Bleak House.”
When Lady Dedlock’s miserable lover dies the doctor drives
Krook’s cat out of the room. “ Don’t leave the cat there! ”
he says. “That won’t do!” Lady Jane goes furtively
downstairs, winding her lithe tail and licking her lips. In
one of Ambrose Bierce’s horror stories a cat conceals her-
self in a coffin and mangles the features of the corpse. But
a superstition prevails in Devonshire that a cat will not remain
in a house with an unburied corpse and stories are often told
of cats, who, on the death of one of the inmates of a house,
have disappeared and not returned until after the funeral.
According to one authority in spiritualism (Elliott O’Donnell:
“Animal Ghosts”) cats sceyit death, that is they smell the
presence of the guiding spirit who has come to take the new
soul away. “ Before a death in a house I have watched a
cat gradually showing signs of uneasiness. It has moved
20 “John Mortonson’s Funeral” in “Can Such Things Be?”

II5

The Tiger in the House

from place to place, unable to settle in any one spot for any
length of time, had frequent fits of shivering, gone to the door,
sniffed the atmosphere, thrown back its head and mewed in a
low, plaintive key, and shown the greatest reluctance to being
alone in the dark.” In Germany the presence of a cat on
the bed of a sick person means that death is approaching and
to this day black cats are kept away from children’s cradles.
There is a legend, indeed, to the effect that cats suck children’s
breaths in their sleep, a silly legend as Harrison Weir has
pointed out, for the jaw formation of the cat is not adapted
for sucking purposes. The factual foundation for this belief
is that cats, liking warm and luxurious places to lie, frequently
creep into cradles and if the cat is big enough it may happen
occasionally that a baby may be accidentally smothered.

If a kitten comes to the house in the morning it is lucky;
if in the evening it portends evil unless it stays to prevent it.
In Scotland if a white cat enters the house it is regarded as a
forerunner of sickness or trouble; if, however, a black cat
enters it is regarded as a harbinger of good luck, and he who
presumes to kill or drown the animal may expect ill luck for
nine years. The sneezing of a cat on a wedding day is said
to be a fortunate omen for the bride. In Lancashire it is re-
garded as unlucky to allow a cat to die in the house; hence
when they are ill they are usually drowned, which is certainly
unlucky for the cats. It is likewise a Lancashire superstition
that those who play with cats never enjoy good health. But
the magnetism of the cat and her repose should have the
most beneficial influence on human health. Louis Wain,
whose word may be said to have some weight on this subject,
offers the following evidence: “ I have found as a result of

many years of inquiry and study, that people who keep cats
and are in the habit of petting them, do not suffer from those
petty ailments which all flesh is heir to. Rheumatism and
nervous complaints are uncommon with them, and pussy’s lov-
ers are of the sweetest temperament. I have often felt the

1 16

The Cat and the Occult

benefit, after a long spell of mental effort, of having my cats
sitting across my shoulders, or of half an hour’s chat with
Peter.”

Another English country superstition is that black cats will
bring lovers to a girl. The rhyme goes as follows :

Whenever the cat o’ the house is black,

The lasses o’ lovers will have no lack,

and another amusing folk-rhyme has it:

Kiss the black cat.

An ’twill make ye fat;

Kiss the white one,

’Twill make ye lean.

But what will happen if you kiss a tortoise-shell, a tabby, or a
blue cat does not appear to be certain. These rhymes are to
be found in Hone’s ‘‘ Every-Day Book ” which gives us fur-
ther particulars about the strange customs of cats: In Devon-

shire and Wiltshire it is believed that a May cat or, in other
words, a cat born in the month of May, will never catch
any rats or mice, but contrary to the wont of cats, will bring
into the house snakes, and slow-worms, and other disagreeable
reptiles. In Hungary there is a superstition that before a
cat can become a good mouser he must be stolen. If a man
with a cat’s hair on his clothing rides, his horse will perspire
violently and will soon become exhausted. If the wind blows
over a cat riding in a vehicle that too will weary the horse.
There is a further superstition that on the death of a tom cat
the life will depart from all his unborn progeny. The Japan-
ese have a superstition that if you rub a bamboo brush on the
back of a female she can conceive of herself. In Cumberland,
England, it is believed that the hair of a cat if swallowed by
a human being will turn into a kitten inside him.

Cats in the Isle of Man have no tails; neither have those of
the Bismarck Archipelago off the North Coast of New Guinea.

I17

The Tiger in the House

Natives sometimes eat cats and unscrupulous neighbours might
steal a cat for a meal. Accordingly in the interest of the
higher morality people remove this stumbling block from the
path of their weaker brothers by docking their cats and keep-
ing the severed portion in a secret place. If now a cat is
stolen and eaten the lawful owner of the animal has It in his
power to avenge the crime. He need only bury the piece
of tail with certain spells in the ground and the thief will
fall ill. If a South Slavonian has a mind to pilfer or steal
at market, he has nothing to do but to burn a blind cat, and
then throw a pinch of the ashes over the person with whom
he Is higgling; after that he can take what he likes from the
booth, and the owner will be none the wiser, having become
as blind as the dead cat with whose ashes he has been
sprinkled.^^

In the United States Fanny Bergen has collected numberless
examples of these curious superstitions concerning cats. In
New England it is bad luck to kill a cat. In Pennsylvania
it is believed that if a farmer kills a cat some of his stock
will die. Cats of three colours bring luck in Canada,
Washington, and Eastern Kansas. Japanese sailors share
this superstition. In Eastern Kansas the possession of
a tortoise-shell is a surety against fire. In New England a
“ smutty-nosed ” cat brings prosperity to its owner and in
Maine a white cat brings poverty. In Massachussetts a
double-pawed cat is a lucky omen but In New York a black
and white cat Is sure to bring sickness to the family. The
belief that it is bad luck to allow a black cat“^ to cross your

21 From Frazer’s “The Golden Bough.”

22 “ I slink away, being superstitious regarding cherry-coloured cats, step-
ladders, and cross-eyed theatre managers,” writes James Huneker in “ Bedouins,”
p. 142.

In a poem by Susan K. Phillips, the following lines occur;

I’m no nvay superstitious as the person called our Mat,

When he’d none sail %vith the herring fleet, ’cause he met old Susie’s cat.

I18

The Cat and the Occult

path is pretty general in the United States and elsewhere as
well. But to be followed by a black cat signifies good luck
in New England and Eastern Kansas. In Eastern New Eng-
land you are sure to quarrel with any one to whom you have
presented a cat. In Alabama if a cat washes her face in front
of several persons the first she looks at will be the first to get
married. In Eastern Kansas it is unlucky to move into a
house where cats have been left by former occupants. Their
owners should have killed the animals. In some parts of the
United States it is considered bad luck to move a cat when the
family moves; in other parts it is considered bad luck not to
move the cat. In Ohio (Hamilton County) it is believed
that a child who plays with a cat will become stupid. Cats
go mad if allowed to eat too much meat or if they lie much
before a fire, according to authorities who live in Brookline,
Massachussetts. And in Maryland there is a superstition that
if you shave off a cat’s whiskers you deprive him of his sense
of smell !

The Negro superstitions concerning cats, connected as they
are with ancient African voodoo worship and noxious paludal
ceremonies, are extremely curious. One has it that in the tip
of every cat’s tail are three hairs of the devil, which give the
cat a tendency to prowl. Sandy Jenkins, the hero of James
David Corrothers’s “ The Black Cat Club,” “ was dressed to
kill; his linen was spotless; his clothing faultless; his cane,
chrysanthemum, and patent leathers matchless,” and under
one arm he carried his black cat, Mesmerizer, to hoodoo his
enemies. In some verses, called “ De Black Cat Crossed his
Tuck ” in this same book Mr. Corrothers epitomizes the
Negro feeling about the animal. An old Negro named Sambo
Lee was “ cotched ” by a Black Cat, and cursed. Sam lost
his job, was bit by a policeman’s dog, beaten by the policeman,
put in jail, quarreled with his wife’s mother, lost his “ lady-

“ Animal and Plant Lore, collected from the oral tradition of English
speaking people.” 24 p^gg

II9

The Tiger in the House

lub,” was worsted at fisticuffs, was robbed, and spent three
weeks In a hospital as a direct result of this curse.

Den to de cunjah-man Sam sped.

An dis am wliut de cunjah-man said:

“ Black Cat am a pow’ful man;

Ruinin’ mo’tals am his plan.

Ole Satan an de ’Riginal Sin
Am de daddy an mammy o’ him.

He’s got nine hunderd an ninety-nine Vibes —

Nineteen thousan an ninety-nine wibes —

He’s kin to cholera an’ allied
To smallpox on de mammy’s side.

A n all de ebils on de earf
Stahted at de Black Cat’s birf! —

Jes’ stop an die right ivhah you’s at,

Ef yo’ luck bin crossed by de ole Black Cat!”

An den Sam read in history

Dat a cat crossed Pharaoh by de see.

An’ hurried him, as sho’s you bo’n.

Too deep to heah ole Gabriel’s ho’nf
A n dat de cat crossed Jonah once.

An’ made him ack a regular dunce.

Crossed Bonaparte at Waterloo,

An’ got Jeems Blaine defeated too.

"Oh, Laud a-mussy now on me!”

Cried Sam, “an on dis history!”

An’ den Sam went an killed de cat —

Swo’e he’d make an end o’ dat; —

Burried him in de light o’ de moon,

Wid a rabbit’s foot an a silver spoon.

But de Black Cat riz, an swallered him whole —

Bunt his house an took his soul!

The terrifying consequences of killing a cat are referred to
again In a poem by Virginia Frazer Boyle:

“ I Kilt er Cat”: These verses may be found on page 89 of Graham R.
Tomson’s anthology, “ Concerning Cats.”

120

The Cat and the Occult

Dars er shakiti an er achin’ ermongst dese ole bones.

And I cries in de night wid de ’miseration moans.

An I hears sumpin ’mawkin wid er solemn sorter groans —

I kilt er cat!

I feels an I knows dat dars sumpin ain right,

’Ca’se er black streek’s er ’pearing in de broad daylight.

An de debbil he rid my chist all night —

I kilt er cat!

* * * *

I wan ers res’less lack, all erbout frough de wood,

Wid de rabbit jut fur comp’ny, but hit cain’t do any good.

An dese ole feets cain’t be quiet, an dey wouldn ef dey could —

I kilt er cat!

*****

I droivns ’im in de water, but he sneakted out ergin.

Den I feels dat I ’mittin er mos awful kind er sin.

Fur I hangs ’im ’dout er chance an I cain’t furgit ’is grin —

I kilt er cat!

Hab mercy on dis darky, oh! I cain’t git shet er dat.

Fur I sees de porten’s pintin des es shore’s I sees dis hat,

Fs hoodooed wid de sperrit uv ole Jonas’s black cat —

Fur I kilt dat cat!

“ Wizard cats,” writes Frank Hamel, “ have been known
to do serious harm to those against whom they have a grudge,
and it is well to be sure, if you value your life, whether you
are dealing with a real animal or a ‘ familiar ’ when you feel
angry.” There is, for example, the very moral story of the
young man of Radnorshire who threw a stone at a cat on his
wedding day. His health began to fail at once and he fre-
quently disappeared for weeks at a time. During these peri-
ods the legend has it that he took feline form. After his
death his soul entered a cat’s body and the animal prowled the
district at night and struck terror into the hearts of naughty
children.

I2I

The Tiger in the House

Sailors are almost as superstitious as negroes about cats,
but the superstition assumes a more favourable form. Evi-
dence that the sailor loves puss may be gathered from the
number of words used on board ship derived from the word
cat. In certain sea-coast towns in England sailors’ wives keep
black cats to protect their husbands at sea. The liveliness
of a ship cat portends a wind and the drowning of a ship cat
seems to be fatal for all on board as well as for the cat him-
self. Japanese sailors regard three-coloured cats (black,
white, and brown), as an excellent charm against spirits and
are said to be unwilling to put to sea without one. A well
known superstition has it that a cat will desert a ship about to
start on its last voyage and there is evidence to show that
sailors have refused to undertake voyages following the deser-
tion of the ship’s cat.“®

Charles Henry Ross in “ The Book of Cats ” quotes an
anonymous author on the meaning of cat dreams. It is pos-
sible that Dr. Freud might not agree with these conclusions at
all points: “ If any one dreams that he hath encountered a

cat or killed one, he will commit a thief to prison and prosecute
him to the death, as the cat signifies a common thief. If he
dreams that he eats the cat’s flesh he will have the goods of
the thief who robbed him. If he dreams that he hath the
skin then he will have all the thief’s goods. If any one dreams
that he fought with a cat who scratched him sorely, that de-
notes some sickness or affliction.”

28 On page 276 of “ Rabbits, Cats and Cavies,” C. H. Lane quotes the follow-
ing story: “The morning before the recent accident to H. M. Destroyer Salmon,

that vessel was lying alongside of H. M. S. Sturgeon. Upon the former vessel
dwelt two cats, the special pets of the crew, and who had never been known to
show the slightest inclination to leave the ship. But on this particular morning
in spite of being chased by the crew and worried by the dogs, the cats never
faltered in their determination to get off the Salmon and on to the Sturgeon.
And when the first-named destroyer had weighed anchor for what was to prove
the disastrous voyage, the cats made one last spring as the vessels separated, and
landed on the deck of H. M. S. Sturgeon.”

122

The Cat and the Occult

There are cat remedies : a cure for erysipelas was to cut
off a cat’s ear (or to take three drops of blood drawn from a
vein under the cat’s tail) and allow the blood to drop slowly
on the affected part. The brain of a cat, taken in small doses,
has been used as a love potion. Ben Jonson in his Masque of
Queens, makes a witch sing thus:

I, from the jawes of a gardener’s bitch.

Did snatch these bones and then leapt the ditch;

Yet went I back to the house againe.

Killed the black cat and here is the brain.

A nostrum for preserving the eyesight was to burn the head
of a black cat to ashes and have a little dust blown into the
eyes three times a day. A whitlow could be cured by placing
the affected finger a quarter of an hour each day in a cat’s ear,
and the foot of the wild cat was considered an excellent remedy
for erysipelas and lameness. Cat’s grease was a useful com-
modity but of no avail for magical or medicinal purposes un-
less the cat made a voluntary offering of it. T. F. Thiselton
Dyer, in “ English Folk-Lore,” quotes Hunt as follows: “ In

Cornwall those little gatherings which come on children’s eye-
lids, locally called ‘ whilks ’ and also ‘ warts ’ are cured by
passing the tail of a black cat nine times over the place.”

Of course Topsell in his quaint “History of Four-footed Beasts” (1658) has
a good deal to say on this subject: “ Alsius prescribeth a fat Cat sod for the

Gowt, first taking the fat, and anointing therewith the sick part, and then
wetting wool or tow in the same, and binding it to the offending place. The
liver of a Cat dryed and beat to powder is good against the stone: the dung
of a female Cat with the claw of an Oul hanged about the neck of a man that
hath had seven fits of a Quartain Ague, cureth the same: a powder made of the
gall of a black Cat and the weight of a groat thereof taken and mingled with
four crowns weight of Zambach, helpeth the convulsion and wr}'ness of the
mouth: and if the gall of a Cat with the black dung of the same Cat, be burned
in perfume under a woman travelling with a dead childe, it will cause it pres-
ently to come forthe: and Pliny saith that if a pin, or thorn, or fish bone, stick in
one’s mouth, let him rub the inside of it with a little cat’s dung, and it will
easily come forth. Given to a woman suffering from the flux with a little Rozen

123

The Tiger in the House

Possibly just here you may grin a little, sink comfortably
into your chair, and reflect that the people of the United States
are at least superior to such silly superstitions. No assump-
tion could be more incorrect.”® Probably every one of these
beliefs has been current in some part of America at one time or
another. In certain parts of England there is credence put
in the statement that a cat’s hair is indigestible and if one is
swallowed death will ensue. It is possible that Americans do
not entertain this legend but I can personally vouch for the
fact that every boy I knew as a child in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
believed that a horse hair immersed in a tumbler of water
would eventually turn into a snake. As for the wart cure,
we learn through no less an authority than Mark Twain that
such a belief existed along the banks of the Mississippi.
When Huckleberry Finn enters the pages of “ Tom Saw-
yer ” he carries a dead cat with him, and when Tom asks
him “ what dead cats is good for ” Huck answers, “ cure warts
with.” ” But say,”queries Tom, “ how do you cure ’em with
dead cats? ”

“ Why, you take your cat and go and get in the graveyard
’long about midnight when somebody that was wicked has been
buried; and when it’s midnight a devil will come, or maybe

and oil of Roses and it stayeth the humour; and for a Web in the eye of a
horse, evening and morning blow in the powder of Cat’s dung and it shall be
cured.”

28 There is really no panacea, mystical, moral, political, or physical, that
Americans will not believe in. Moncure Daniel Conway gives the following
examples in “Demonology and Devil-Lore”: “Dr. Dyer, an eminent physician
of Chicago, Illinois, told me (1875) ttiat a case occurred in that city within his
personal knowledge, where the body of a woman who had died of consumption
was taken out of the grave and the lungs burned, under the belief that she was
drawing after her in the grave some of her surviving relatives. In 1874, accord-
ing to the ‘ Providence Journal,’ in the village of Peacedale, Rhode Island, Mr.
William Rose dug up the body of his own daughter and burned her heart, under
the belief that she was wasting away the lives of other members of his family.”
A recent criminal trial in one of the Middle Western States brought out the fact
that many an American pocket, even today, carries a silver bullet as a talisman
against the witch-cat.

29 “ Tom Sawyer,” Chapter VI.

124

From a drawing by Grandville in Vie privee et publiqtie des animaux

The Cat and the Occult

two or three, but you can’t see ’em, you can only hear some-
thing like the wind, or maybe hear ’em talk; and when they’re
taking that feller away, you heave your cat after ’em and say,
‘ Devil follow corpse, cat follow devil, warts follow cat. I’m
done with ye!’ That’ll fetch any wart.”

We no longer burn witches and we no longer, in groups,
persecute cats. Indeed puss has settled down to a life of lux-
ury and appreciation which she has not hitherto enjoyed since
the days when she watched the temple altars of the Nile, near
the catadupe, or strolled among the guests at the Sultan’s ban-
quet. If she is no longer a god, at least she is still worshipped.
But do not be mislead by these signs. We have forgotten the
dark days but the cat remembers; the racial consciousness, the
hereditary traits in cats are strong. And she will never forget
her wild rides with witches, her appearances at the Sabbath,
frequently attached to the belt of the pythoness, the use of
her body as a casket for the soul of the sorceress, her persecu-
tion. And today, for that reason, she is more in touch with
what we call the supernatural than any other animal, including
man. Wood^^ gives a case of a lady and her cat simultane-
ously seeing and being variously affected mentally and physi-
cally by a vision of an old wrinkled hag. The lady became the
victim of a helpless fascination, of paralysis of mobility and

In her book, already alluded to, Fanny Bergen gives a long list of examples
of cat remedy superstitions which are credited in various parts of the United
States. In Eastern Kansas the skin of a black cat worn in one’s clothing will
cure rheumatism. In Somerset County, Maine, the blood of a black cat is used
to cure shingles. In other parts of the United States it is believed that shingles
may be cured by applying the freshly removed skin of a cat to the affected sur-
face. A correspondent from Western New York wrote Mrs. Bergen in regard
to this: “This is no hearsay matter with the writer, for in his boyhood he was

afflicted with this disease and passed a night with the bloody skin of his fa-
vourite pussy covering his left side and the pit of his stomach.” In Eastern
Massachusetts this same cure is prescribed for hives, and in Salem, an old Negro
was cured of consumption by this method. In Southern Illinois three hairs from
the tip of a black cat’s tail are sufficient to cure a felon and in the South a sty
may be cured by brushing it nine times with a black cat’s tail.

31 “ Man and Beast: Here and Hereafter,” p. 320.

125

The Tiger in the House

speech, while the cat, on the contrary, made frantic efforts to
escape. Perhaps this cat had had an unfortunate experience
in some past life with the old hag; at any rate other cats have
been known to entertain a vast liking for spiritualistic seances.
Algernon Blackwood has written an astoundingly astute
story on this theme, “ A Psychical Invasion,” in which he
contrasts the effects of the presence of spirits on a cat and a
dog. In an attempt to discover the causes of certain phe-
nomena John Silence visits a house at midnight, accompanied
by a dog and a cat. “ Cats in particular, he believed, were al-
most continuously conscious of a larger field of vision, too
detailed even for a photographic camera, and quite beyond
the range of normal human organs. He had, further, ob-
served that while dogs were usually terrified in the presence of
such phenomena, cats on the other hand were soothed and
satisfied. They welcomed manifestations as something be-

82 Elliott O’Donnell, in “Animal Ghosts”; William Rider and Son; London;
1913, speaks of similar experiences: “From endless experiments made in

haunted houses, I have proved to my own satisfaction, at least, that the cat
acts as a thoroughly reliable psychic barometer. The dog is sometimes unaware
of the proximity of the Unknown. When the ghost materializes or in some other
way demonstrates its advent, the dog, occasionally, is wholly undisturbed — the
cat never. I have never yet had a cat with me that has not shown the most
obvious signs of terror and uneasiness both before and during a superphysical
manifestation.” Mr. O’Donnell not only believes that cats see ghosts; he also
believes that they have them. If the curious reader will turn to his book, he
may find therein descriptions of the cat-spectres who have returned to haunt
the scenes where they have been tortured. Mr. O’Donnell even goes so far as
to assert that there may be something in the superstition that occasionally a black
tom cat is the devil in animal form. “ It would be idle, of course, to expect
people in these unmeditative times to believe that there was ever the remotest
truth underlying these so-called fantastic suppositions of the past; yet, according
to reliable testimony, there are, at the present moment, many houses in England
haunted by phantasms in the form of black cats, of so sinister and hostile an
appearance, that one can only assume that unless they are the actual spirits of
cats, earthbound through cruel and vicious propensities, they must be vice-ele-
mentals, i. e. spirits that have never inhabited any material body, and which have
either been generated by vicious thoughts, or else have been attracted to a spot
by some crime or vicious act once perpetrated there.”

*8 “John Silence.”

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The Cat and the Occult

longing to their own region.” The result of his experiment
justified his faith. The dog, an unusually courageous collie,
was terrified beyond belief by the presence of the spirits and
lay whimpering in a corner, finally, indeed, losing his sight.
But the cat I The doctor alone in the darkened room, with a
low fire, waited he knew not what. ” Smoke . . . began to
wash. But the washing, the doctor noted, was by no means
its real purpose; it only used it to mask something else; it
stopped at the most busy and furious moments and began to
stare about the room. Its thoughts wandered absurdly. It
peered intently at the curtains; at the shadowy corners; at
empty space above; leaving its body in curiously awkward
positions for whole minutes together.” The doctor at length
fell asleep. Sometime later ” a soft touch on the cheek
awoke him. Something was patting him. He sat up with
a jerk, and found himself staring into a pair of brilliant eyes,
half green, half black. Smoke’s face lay level with his own;
and the cat had climbed up with his front paws upon his chest.
The lamp had burned low and the fire was nearly out, yet
Dr. Silence saw in a moment that the cat was in an excited
state. It kneaded with its front paws into his chest, shifting
from one to the other. He felt them prodding against him.
It lifted a leg very carefully and patted his cheek gingerly.
Its fur, he saw, was standing ridgewise upon its back; the ears
were flattened back somewhat; the tail was switching sharply.
The cat, of course, had awakened him with a purpose. . . .
Two things he became aware of at once : one that Smoke, while
excited, was pleasurably excited; the other, that the collie was
no longer visible upon the mat at his feet. He had crept
away to the corner of the wall farthest from the window, and
lay watching the room with wide-open eyes, in which lurked
plainly something of alarm. . . . Smoke had jumped down
from the back of the arm-chair and now occupied the middle
of the carpet, where, with tail erect and legs stiff as ramrods,
it was steadily pacing backwards and forwards in a narrow

127

The Tiger in the House

space, uttering, as it did so, those curious little guttural sounds
of pleasure that only an animal of the feline species knows
how to make expressive of supreme happiness. Its stiffened
legs and arched back made It appear larger than usual, and the
black visage wore a smile of beatific joy. Its eyes blazed
magnificently; it was in an ecstasy. At the end of every few
paces it turned sharply and stalked back again along the same
line, padding softly, and purring like a roll of little muffled
drums. It behaved precisely as though it were rubbing
against the ankles of some one who remained invisible. A
thrill ran down the doctor’s spine as he stood and stared. . . .
For an Instant, as he watched It, the doctor was aware that a
faint uneasiness stirred In the depths of his own being, focus-
sing Itself for the moment upon this curious behaviour of the
uncanny creature before him. There rose in him quite a new
realization of the mystery connected with the whole feline
tribe, but especially with that common member of It, the do-
mestic cat — their hidden lives, their strange aloofness, their
Incalculable subtlety. How utterly remote from anything that
human beings understood lay the sources of their elusive ac-
tivities. As he watched the Indescribable bearing of the little
creature mincing along the strip of carpet under his eyes,
coquetting with the powers of darkness, welcoming, maybe,
some fearsome visitor, there stirred In his heart, a feeling
strangely akin to awe. Its indifference to human kind. Its
serene superiority to the obvious, struck him forcibly with
fresh meaning; so remote, so Inaccessible seemed the secret
purposes of its real life, so alien to the blundering honesty of
other animals. Its absolute poise of bearing brought into his
mind the opium-eater’s words that ‘ no dignity is perfect which
does not at some point ally Itself with the mysterious.’ ”

I do not remember that Hermes TrIsmegistus or Paracel-

34 Mr. Blackwood has treated this motive again in a more sentimental vein in
his story, “ The Attic,” in the volume entitled “ Pan’s Garden.”

128

The Cat and the Occult

sus mention the cat in their alchemystical formulae, but both
of these philosophers sat at the feet of this animal, just as cer-
tainly as later alchemists often found the presence of grimalkin
convenient or his body necessary in preparing some mixture
for the arcane cauldron. Probably the sylphs, gnomes, un-
dines, and salamanders of the Comte de Gabalis were really
white, black, silver, and orange pussies. But I do not think
a magic system of divination by cats, ailuromancy it would be
called, has yet been evolved. He keeps his secrets too closely
to afford much aid to the hierophant. He retains those in-
stincts of transcendental sensualism, those strange currents
from the past, which man and even most of the other animals,
especially the domestic animals, have exchanged for the in-
ferior benefits of “ civilization.” He is in touch with the
infinite and unknown; he remembers the cult of the Egyptians
and the strange secrets of Babylon, the apozemical soups of
the sorceress. He recognizes Wotan in the storm and Kat-
schei in the dark of the night. In the flames he sees Loge
and Aphrodite rises for him on the waves of every sea. Eros
haunts his rooftops and Diana directs his hunting expedi-
tions. Sekhet and Pasht sit in the temples of his imagination.
All the gods, all the devils are his friends; he knows the fairies,
the elves, and the kobolds, and stryge and vampires come when
he calls. The rustling of the leaves tells him a story, warns
him of a danger, and a flight of birds prophesies a fair day.
The touch of a wall against his whisker presses a signal into
his brain and the crackle of a dried fern under his padded paw
is to him the threat of a black-handed camorra. He is Swed-
enborgian and Pagan, Palladian and Kabbalist, Mohammedan
and Jew. He walks on the sea with Christ and on the clouds
with Buddha. He promenades in the poet’s brain. He un-
derstands and salutes the pale petunia; the esoteric begonia
is his brother. The ithyphallic rites of Heliogabolus are as
familiar to him as the cruel diversions of Gille de Retz. He

129

The Tiger in the House

learns the meaning of the Signs of the Zodiac, Solomon’s Sigil,
the Tarot, the Ibimorphic and Serapian Triads, the Pantacles
of the Planets, the Ten Commandments, and Science and
Health while he is yet a kitten. Far from being the appren-
tice of the Wizard, he is more often the Master.

130

Chapter Five: The Cat in Folklore

Where the cat came from is a mystery; you may believe the
Noah story if you like. Wood says that the Egyptian Fells
maniculata is the grandfather of our household pet, while
Lydekker ^ summons modern authorities to prove that this
progenitor was the Kaffir Cat, a yellowish cat with tiger
stripes. Fells lybica, which still roams about northeastern
Africa, hunting at night and living in holes dug by other
animals. Again, probably, for all of this is quite as uncertain
as the Noah story, the Romans brought the Egyptian cat to
England some time before the fifth century and there is a
theory to the effect that our modern tabby is a cross be-
tween this ancient animal and the British wild cat. This
theory does not account for Persian and Angora cats at all as
Egyptian cats were short-haired. A cat of Central Asia, popu-
larly known as Pallas’s cat, is suspected of the ancestry of these
more aristocratic beasts. As to the alluros of the Greeks,
I have already intimated that current scholarly opinion, which,
of course, is worth very little, has come to the conclusion that
this was not a cat at all, but the snowy-breasted marten.

Where the cat is going is equally a mystery. “ Every one
is aware,” writes Mr. Andrew Lang, “ that a perfectly com-
fortable, well-fed cat will occasionally come to his house and
settle there, deserting a family by whom it is lamented, and
to whom it could, if it chose, find its way back with ease. This
conduct is a mystery which may lead us to infer that cats form
a great secret society, and that they come and go in pursuance
of some policy connected with education, or perhaps with

iR. Lydekker: “The Pedigree of the Cat”; “Knowledge”; Vol. 20, p. 181;
August 2, 1897.

I3I

The Tiger in the House

witchcraft. We have known a cat to abandon his home for
years. Once in six months he would return, and look about
him with an air of some contempt. ‘ Such,’ he seemed to
say, ‘ were my humble beginnings.’ ” It must be remembered
that the cat is an oriental and all orientals are mysterious.
There seems to be even a canon of feline etiquette which
forbids two cats to meet and pass without some display of
solemn formalities, reminiscent of greetings in the Orient
where time is of no particular value.

Even the derivation of the name of the cat is shrouded in
darkness. From the Latin word felis we have extracted
feline but the word cattus or catus came into use as late as
the fourth century A. D. and is to be found first in the writ-
ings of an agricultural author, Palladius, who recommends
that puss be kept in artichoke gardens as a protection against
rodents and moles. Evagrius Scholasticus, a later Greek
church historian, uses the word catta. Isidorus derives cattus
from cattare, meaning to see, in reference doubtless to the
animal’s vigilance and watchfulness. On the other hand a
writer in “ Notes and Queries ” declares that the only lan-
guage, so far as he can ascertain, in which the word cat is
significant is the Zend, in which the word gatu means a place,
a particularly expressive word in this connection. His infer-
ence is that Persia is the original home of the cat and he goes
on to say that the cat was probably introduced from Persia,
through Spain, into Europe because the Spanish word gato is
almost identical with the Zend. The only flaws in this brill-
iant philological reasoning are that the Spanish word is also
almost identical with the late Latin and that Persian cats and
European cats are two distinct breeds. Adolphe Pictet ^ de-
rives catus from an African root: Arab, kitt^ plural kitdt;

Syrian, kato; Nubian, kadiska, and in still other African
tongues, kaddiska and gada. This ingenious etymologist fur-
ther thinks that puss comes from an old Sanskrit word, puccha,
*“Les Origines Indo-Europ6ene3 ou les Aryas Primitifs,” Paris, 1859.

132

From a photograph by Harriet V, Furness

The Cat in Folklore

piccha, meaning tall. There is a suggestion of this root in
the Persian pushak; Afghan, pishik; Kurd, psig; Lithuanian,
puize; Irish pus, feisag, fiseog, and feisahi. A still more in-
genious pundit thinks that the French chat is an onomatope for
the cat’s spitting.

To come to more familiar tongues, in Dutch the word is
kat; in Swedish, katt; Italian, gatto; Portuguese and Spanish
gato; Polish, hot; Russian, hots; Turkish, ket'i; Welsh, cath;
Cornish, hath; German, die Katze (a Frenchman deploring
that chat is masculine in French, admires this choice of gen-
der) ; Basque, catua; Armenian, kitta; Picardian, ca, co; Bur-
gundian, chai; Catalonian, gat. The antique rituals in the
Louvre give the Egyptian name as mau, mai, niaau.^ These
and the Chinese word, mao, seem the most natural of all.

In every language allusions to the cat are sprinkled as
thickly as currants in a good fruit-cake. Many of these take
the form of derivative words, the formation of a good half of
which is as mysterious as puss herself. Others are metaphor-
ical or proverbial, and have a bearing on the popular ideas,
prejudices, and superstitions concerning the cat. Murray’s
Oxford Dictionary devotes two full pages to cat and its de-
rivative words; nor is the list in Murray by any means ex-
haustive. Many of the following examples are from other
sources.

There are, to begin with, the sea-terms, which seem to offer
cumulative evidence that the cat is a favourite marine animal.
There is the cat-boat, which formerly was called merely the
cat, and some students of folklore have tried to prove that
this was the kind of cat Dick Whittington owned. The sig-
nificance of catamaran, another variety of boat, which rights
itself in a surf, is quite clear. The word is derived from the
Italian, gatta marina, and is an allusion to the faculty the cat
possesses of falling on his feet. Cat is also the name for a
tackle or combination of pulleys used to suspend the anchor

® Some Egyptologists have read ckaou on certain monuments.

133

The Tiger in the House

at the cat’s-head of a ship. Cat-harping is the name for a
purchase of ropes employed to brace the shrouds in the lower
masts behind their yards. The cat-fall is the rope employed
upon the cat’s-head and the cat-hook is a large hook fitted to
a cat-block, by which the anchor is raised to the cat’s-head.
Two little holes astern, above the gun-room ports, are called
cat-holes. A cat’s-paw is a particular turn in the bight of a
rope made to work a tackle in and it is also the rippling on
the water made by light air during a calm, which resembles the
slight disturbance made in a pool when a cat delicately
troubles the surface with his paw. Lastly there is the terrible
cat-o-nine-tails. Folklorists have discovered cross references.
“ How is it? ” asks David Fitzgerald, “ that we find the nine-
tailed cat (a magical cat with no allusion to the scourge) in the
legends of the Goban Saor? And a cat with ten tails in Scot-
tish counting-out rhymes, and the phrase to ‘ whip the cat ’ for
to work against, among the tailors of Crieff? ”

Many plants are named after cats: cat-briar, an American-
ism for smilax, which I offer to H. L. Mencken; cat-chop,
which I have not identified; cat-haw, the fruit of the haw-

* “ The Cat in Legend and Myth”; “Belgravia”; London; November 1885.
“The Norwegian gorging cat (whose history we once heard well related by
Mr. Ralston) swallows the man and wife (‘goodman’ and ‘goody’ in the trans-
lator’s dialect), a number of animals, a wedding party, and a funeral train, and
the sun and moon — all of which he disgorges as wonderfully as they are
swallowed down . . .” continues Mr. Fitzgerald. “ In Ireland this same an-
cient monster appeared in at least six forms. He is Kate Kearney’s cat, oldest
of things (As old as Kate Kearney’s cat is an Irish proverb). He is the pro-
verbial cat that ate the year. He is the dreadful cat o’ leasa. He is the piping
cat, sculptured on ancient crosses, and figuring on tavern signs. He is the cat
with two tails, cat with ten tails, cat with nine tails, of the Goban Saor. And
he is the cat in (seven-leagued) boots. — The myth further appears among the
Iroquois Indians in the shape of a two-headed serpent which devours the nation,
all but one man and woman; slain, however, it rolls into a lake and disgorges
them all. This two-headed dragon appears in Ireland as a bi-tailed cat, as the
Cat of the Fort, cat a’ leasa, a colossal monster, circling the hill in a coil miles
long. . . . The twy-tailed cat (Day and Night?) was sculptured at Holycross
Abbey, Tipperary, and in the French chapel at Canterbury.” Angelo de Guber-

134

The Cat in Folklore

thorne; cat-in-clover, blrd’s-foot trefoil; cat-keys, the fruit of
the ash-tree; cat-sloe, the wild sloe; cat-succory, wild succory;
cat’s-head, a variety of apple and also a fossil, cat-trail, the
beloved valerian; cat-thyme, a species of teucrium which
causes sneezing; cat-tree, spindle tree; the familiar cat-tails
and catnip; catkins, imperfect flowers hanging from trees in
the manner of a cat’s tail; cat’s-foot, an herb; and curiously
enough, cat-whin or dog-rose 1

In American slang one old cat is a kind of primitive base-
ball game. Letting the old cat die is to allow a swing to
prove that there is no such phenomenon as perpetual motion.
As the swing sags back and forth eight or nine times after
you have stopped pushing it this phrase possibly has reference
to the nine lives of the cat. Cattycornered, meaning diagon-
ally opposite or across, has reference to the oblique move-
ments of the cat. Scat is an interjection used to tell puss to
make a speedy departure. Pussyfoot is a term derived from
the cat’s padded paws and stealthy approach but no cat in
the world would be in favour of prohibition of any variety.
In English thieves’ slang cat signifies a lady’s muff. A kind of
double tripod with six feet, intended to hold a plate before
the fire and so constructed that in whatever position it is
placed three of the legs rest on the ground is called a cat from
the belief that however a cat may be thrown she always
lands on her feet. The enemies of the feline race say “ as
false as a cat ” and it is from this phrase that the terms
cat’s gold and cat’s silver, the common names for mica on ac-

natis, too, is infected with this familiar and somewhat silly method of trying to
explain all folk-stories symbolically. In “ Zoological Mythology, or the Legends
of Animals,” he gives it as his belief that the celebrated fable of the Kilkenny
Cats may mean the mythological contest between night and twilight. God pity
these men !

Moncure Daniel Conway (“Demonology and Devil-Lore”) refers to a similar
legend: Thor, the Norse Hercules, once tried to lift a cat, as it seemed to him,
off the ground, but it was the great mid-earth serpent which encircles the whole
world. Thor succeeded in lifting one paw of the supposed cat.

135

The Tiger in the House

count of its deceptive appearance, are derived. There are
sea-cats, cat-fish, cat-birds, cat-squirrels, and cat-owls, or fly-
ing cats. A French word for owl is chat-huant. Cat’s-eye
is a well-known semi-precious stone. Cat’s purr is a thrill felt
over the region of the heart in certain diseases. Cat’s tooth
is white-lead ore from Ireland; cat-brain, a soil consisting of
rough clay mixed with stones; cat-dirt a kind of clay. Cat-
collops is cat-meat and the cat’s meat man, a familiar London
figure, is frequently referred to as the pussy butcher. Cat-
face is a mark in lumber wood; cat-ice, thin ice of a milky ap-
pearance from under which the water has receded. Cat-nap
is a short nap taken while sitting; cat-ladder a kind of ladder
used on sloping roofs of houses; cat-steps, the projections of
the stones in the slanting part of the gable; cat-pipe, an arti-
ficial cat-call. Puss gentleman is eighteenth century for cata-
mite. Kitty is a common poker term. Copy cat is a mis-
nomer because cats never copy anybody. A common phrase
for an unusual event is “ enough to make a cat laugh,” but the
Cheshire Cat in “ Alice in Wonderland ” is not the only
recorded example of a laughing cat. “ Enough to make a
cat speak ” is a similar expression, but as I have pointed out
in the preceding chapter, speaking cats are almost a com-
monplace. Cat’s paw is a reference to a monkey’s idle jest.
Salt-cat is a mess of coarse meal placed in a dove-cote to al-
lure strangers. A cat’s walk is a little way and back. To
jerk, shoot, or whip the cat means to vomit. Cat-harrow,
Cat and Dog, Cat or Kit-Cat ® are games. It was once a trick
of farmers to bring a cat to market in a bag and sell it for
a suckling pig to the unwary. If the purchaser discovered the
deception he let the cat out of the bag; if he did not he was
said to have bought a pig in a poke. Both expressions have
become proverbial. An island in the Bahama group is named
Cat Island and Moncrif writes of the Cape of Cats. You

® Kit-Cat and Cat and Dog are described in William Carew Hazlitt’s “ Faiths
and Folklore.”

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The Cat in Folklore

may have heard of the Catskills. An ancestor of mine, Der-
rick Tennis Van Vechten,® was the founder of the extremely
unimportant town in New York bearing that name. Cat
was a movable pent-house used in the middle ages by be-
siegers to protect themselves when approaching fortifications.
It was also called a cat-house;'^ something else is called a
cat-house in modern times, just as certain pretty ladies in
London and Geisha girls in Japan are called cats.

All languages are rich in cat proverbs, many of which ap-
pear to have been the inventions of those who believe what
Buffon and Noah Webster had to say about the animal.
Many others have reference to the cat’s prowess and special
instincts, a few to her grace and beauty. Plutarch, when in
Egypt, heard the proverb. An overdressed lady is like a
cat dressed in saffron. An old Chinese saying is, A lame cat
is better than a swift horse when rats infest the palace. It
is not the fleas of dogs that will make cats mew, is also Chi-
nese. A Japanese proverb has it that A dog will remember
a three days’ kindness three years while a cat will forget a
three years’ kindness in three days. This may be regarded
as a compliment to the intelligence of the cat. A Hindu say-
ing is. If you want to know what a tiger is like, look at a cat;
if you want to know what a thug is like, look at a butcher. I
am inclined to agree with Lockwood Kipling that only the
first half of this proverb is true. As cats are sometimes slung
in a net in India, a proverb descriptive of sudden success is
The cat is in luck; the net is torn. I was not so angry at the
cat for stealing the butter as at her wagging her tail shows

® “ Catskill was settled about 1680 by Derrick Teunis Van Vechten”: Encyclo-
pedia Americana; 1918; Vol. 6, p. 108.

’’ Morley Adams in his book, “ In the Footsteps of Borrow and Fitzgerald ”
(p. 113), speaks of the Cat-House on the River Orwell: “This little lodge

played an important part in the smuggling which took place hereabouts a cen-
tury ago, the occupants, if report be true, being in league with the contraband
men. When the ‘ coast was clear ’ a large stuffed cat was displayed in the win-
dow, and when the preventative men were on the look-out the cat was taken
away.”

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The Tiger in the House

that Hindu humanity is not so very different in some respects
from European or American. Of a hypocrite the Hindu
remarks: The cat, with mouse tails still hanging out of her

mouth, says — ‘ Now I feel good, I will go on a pilgrimage to
Mecca ! ’ The Indian cat miyaus; so one says to a child or
a servant. What ! my own cat, and miyau at me 1 The cat
does not catch mice for God is a priceless bit of wisdom.
Even a cat is a lion in her own lair is said of mild-tempered
people who fly into sudden rages. A cat’s moon is a Kash-
miri expression for a sleepless night. It is also in Kashmir
that they say. If cats had wings there would be no ducks in
the lake. An Indian mother will say to an idle girl. Did the
cat sneeze or what? A sneering proverb has it. In a learned
house even the cat is learned. A sly man is said to look like
a drowned cat; a live cat is said to be better than a dead tiger.
It is easy to understand the meaning of The cowed cat allows
even a mouse to bite its ears but did the thing ever happen?®
John Hay” gives, A miawling cat takes no mice as a Span-
ish proverb but, of course, this occurs in every language.
Other Spanish proverbs are They whip the cat if our mistress
does not spin; The mouse does not go away with a bellyful
from the cat’s house; When the cats go away the mice grow
saucy; Don’t turn the cat out of the house for being a thief
(spoken of those who expect what is contrary to nature from
servants) ; Let us see who will carry the cat to water; and
The meat is on the hook because there is no cat. The Por-
tuguese say: The cat is certainly friendly but it scratches. A
charming Russian proverb says: The day is young, said the

cat, remembering that he could wait. Plays of cat, tears of
mice is also Russian. The cat will catch fish but he does not
soil his paws is German. A delightful Italian saying is:
Four things are necessary for a home: grain, a cock, a cat, and
a wife.

® These examples arc from John Lockwood Kipling’s “ Beast and Man in
India.” ® “ Castilian Days.”

The Cat in Folklore

The available examples of cat proverbs in English are
so very numerous that I must content myself with giving only
a few of them. Some of these are true folk-sayings; others
have become popular through their appearance in plays and
novels. Care will kill a cat. A muffled cat is no good

mouser. The cat is out of kind that sweet milk will not lap.

You can have no more of a cat than her skin, a proverb which
does not take into account the French custom of using puss for
rabbit stew.^*’ When the cat winketh little wots the mouse

1® As one of Raoul Gineste’s poems has it:

. . . sur un feu doux, dans une casserole,

Tes morceaux chanteront I’ultime barcarolle,

Car I’homme est sans scrupule et le lapin est cher.

“ A cat,” writes Browne, in his “ Natural History of Jamaica,” “ is a very dainty
dish among the Negroes.” The Portuguese eat the cat, according to Darwin.
The Abbe Lenoir informs us that the Chinese consider the cat excellent food and
that in their provision shops enormous felines are hung up with their heads and
tails on. They are bred on farms, secured by light chains, and fattened with the
remains of the rice cooked for the family. Edward Topsell, who is as quotable
as Bernard Shaw, and much more amusing, in his “ History of Four-Footed
Beasts” (1658) writes: “It is reported that the flesh of Cats salted and sweet-

ened hath power in it to draw wens from the body, and being warmed to cure
the Hemmorhoids and pains in the reins and back, according to the Verse of
Ursinus. In Spain and Gallia Norbon, they eat Cats, but first of all take away
their head and tail, and hang the prepared flesh a night or two in the open
cold air, to exhale the savour and poison of it, finding the flesh thereof almost a."
sweet as a cony.” Topsell, however, does not approve of this practice: “The

flesh of Cats can seldom be free from poison, by reason of their daily food, eat-
ing Rats and Mice, Wrens and other birds which feed on poison, and above all
the brain of the Cat is most venomous, for it being above all measure dry, stop-
peth the animal spirits, that they cannot pass into the venticle, by reason thereof
memory faileth, and the infected person falleth into a Phrenzie. The cure
whereof may be this, take the water of sweet majoram with terra lemnia the
wneight of a groat mingled together, and drink it twice a month, putting good
store of spirits into all your meat to recreate the spirits withall, let him drink
pure wine, wherein put the seed of Diamoschu. But a Cat doth as much harm
with her venomous teeth, therefore to cure her biting, they prescribe a good diet,
sometimes taking Honey, turpentine, and Oil of Roses melt together and laid to
the wound with Centory; sometimes they wash the wound with the urine of a
man, and lay to it the brains of some other beast and pure wine mingled both
together. The hair also of a Cat being eaten unawares, stoppeth the artery and
causeth suffocation: and I have heard that when a childe hath gotten the hair

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The Tiger in the House

what the cat thinketh. Fain would the cat eat fish but she is

loth to wet her feet. The cat sees not the mouse ever.
Though the cat winks awhile, yet sure she is not blind. The
more you rub a cat on her back the higher she sets up her tail.
Well might the cat wink when both her eyes were out. How
can the cat help it if the maid be a fool? That that comes of
a cat will catch mice. A cat may look at a king. An old cat
laps as much as a young kitten. When the cat is away the
mice will play. The cat knows whose lips she licks. Cry
you mercy killed my cat (this was spoken of those who
played tricks and then tried to escape punishment by beg-
ging pardon). When candles are out all cats are grey. By
biting and scratching cats and dogs come together. I’ll keep
no more cats than will catch mice. A cat has nine lives and
a woman has nine cats’ lives. Cats eat what hussies spare.
In October not even a cat is to be found in London. A good
wife and a good cat are best at home. A cat will never drown
if she sees the shore. An ugly cat will have pretty kittens.
The cat with the straw tail sitteth not before the fire. Cats
hide their claws. The wandering cat gets many a rap. The
cat is hungry when a crust contents her. He lives under the
sign of the cat’s foot (his wife scratches him). A blate cat
makes a proud mouse is a Scotch form of saying that a stupid
or timid foe is not to be feared. A dead cat feels no cold.
A piece of kid is worth two of cat. A scaulded cat fears cold
water is a translation of the French Chat echaude craint V eau
froide. As melancholy as a cat, or as melancholy as a gib-
cat is a common pbrase in England. “ I am melancholy as
a gib-cat or lugged bear,” says a Shakespearean character.

of a Cat in his mouth, it hath so cloven and stuck to the place that it could not
be gotten off again, and hath in that place bred either the wens or the King’s
evill. To conclude this point it appeareth that this is a dangerous beast, and
that therefore as for necessity we are constrained to nourish them for the sup-
pressing of small vermin: so with a wary and discreet eye we must avoid their
harms, making more account of their use than of their persons.”

140

The Cat in Folklore

It should be explained that toms are called gib or ram-cats
in Northern England. In Pepys’s Diary for November 29,
1667, for instance, you may read: “Our young gib-cat did

leap down our stairs ... at two leaps.” To turn the cat
in the pan is to reverse the order of things. Before the cat
can lick her ear, of course, means never. Cats and carlins sit
in the sun. Denham’s “Popular Sayings” (1846) gives
Every day’s no yule; cast the cat a castock, which is to say
spare no expense, bring another bottle of beer. In reference
to the cat’s elusiveness an old saying has it: He bydes as

fast as a cat bound with a sacer. He can hold the cat to the
sun is said of a man of extreme daring.

The French are quite as prolific as the English in proverbs
referring to the cat. Note, for example, this charming aph-
orism, which is entirely Parisian: The three animals that

spend the most time over their toilet are cats, flies, and
women. To run very swiftly without tiring oneself is courir
comme iin chat maigre. Discordant music is line musique de
chats. The sudden embarrassment which results in the loss
of voice is caused by un chat dans la gorge. The equivalent
English saying employs the humbler frog. A person who
likes delicate things is friande comme chatte. He who writes
illegibly ecrit comme un chat. Trying to inspire pity is faire
la chatte moiiillee. To pass rapidly over a delicate situation,
to skate on thin ice, to use the English parallel expression, is
passer par-dessus comme chat sur braise. To look clean and
yet not be clean is to be propre comme une ecuelle de chat.
Vivre comme chien et chat has its exact equivalent in English.

Gib or Gyb is an abbreviation of Gilbert; in Europe this frequently became
Tybalt or Tybert, Tyb or Tib. Mercutio insults Tybalt on this score. “ Gibbe
is the Icelandic gabba, to delude, and our gibber,” writes Moncure Daniel Con-
way (“Demonology and Devil-lore”; Vol. II, p. 313). “It is the Gib cat of
‘ Reinicke Fuchs,’ and of the Romaunt of the Rose.’ In Gammer Gurton we
read ‘ Hath no man gelded Gyb, her cat’; and in Henry IV, ‘ I am as melancholy
as a gib cat.’ Another cat is called Inges, that is ignis, fire.” Another old Eng-
lish name for the male cat was carl-cat, and boar-cat was not uncommon.

I4I

The Tiger in the House

Dignitaries who wear fur on their costumes of ceremony are
called chats fourres. To look surly is avoir une mine de
chat fdche. Faire la chattemite is to effect humble, flatter-
ing manners. If there is nobody present, il n y a pas un chat.
If by weakness or negligence one permits oneself to be de-
ceived, on laisse aller le chat au fromage. Le chat a faim
quand il mange du pain is said of those who eat what does
not altogether please them, but cats often like to eat bread,
indeed sometimes prefer it to other food. To expose one-
self to danger without taking precaution is prendre le chat
sans mitaines. There are several French variations of this
phrase, which also occurs in English, and probably in many
other languages as well. On ne prend pas le chat sans
moufles and Chat emmoufle ne prend pas souris are the most
common. Gourmand comme un chat is said of gluttons. To
torment an adversary is jouer comme le chat avec la souris.
Of a dangerous or impossible situation one says C’est le nid
d' une souris dans Voreille d’un chat. To watch everybody
is avoir un oeil a la poele et 1’ autre au chat. Those who are
always conciliating never jettent le chat au.x jambes de per-
sonae. Jeter sa langiie au chat is to refuse to respond to
an embarrassing question. Ache ter chat en poche is, of
course, as English as it is French. One also says in French
ache ter le chat pour le lievre, a pretty custom which I have
already touched upon. La nuit tous les chats sont gris I
have given in its English dress; in its French form it occurs
in Beaumarchais’s Le Barhier de Seville. A hon chat, bon
rat: for a good attack, good defence. As it is in the kitchen
that the cat most frequently is scaulded one says Chat echaude
ne revient pas en cuisine. The meaning of the following
proverbs is quite obvious: Qui naquit chat court apres les

souris; On ne saurait retenir le chat quand il a goute a la
creme; Il fait le saint, il fait le chat; Qui vit avec les chats
prendra gout aux souris; Les chats retombent toujours sur
les pattes; Il ne faut pas faire passer tous les chats pour

142

IL NE FAUT PAS FAIRE PASSER TOUS LES CHATS POUR SORCIERS ”

From a drawing by Grandvillc in J'ie privee et puhlique des animaux

k.'

The Cat in Folklore

sorciers; Quand les chats sont absents les sotiris dansent,
which is our; When the cat’s away the mice will play; Faire
tirer au chat les marrons du feu is a reference to the fable
of the cat and the ape. Entendre hien chat sans qidon disc
ininon is to have the wit to comprehend things quickly.
According to a thirteenth century proverb La ou kas n’est,
li souris se tient fiere. Faire de la houillie pour les chats
is to be careless. To take French leave is emporter le chat.
Avoir d’autres chats a fouetter is to have other fish to fry.
Of something insignificant one says: II n’y a pas de quoi fouet-
ter un chat. A ppeler un chat un chat has an English
parallel. So has Ne reveillons pas le chat qui dort. Payer
en chats et en rats is to pay in driblets. There are rhymed
proverbs such as:

C’est chasser le chat bien tard
Quand il a mange le lard.

A tard se repent le rat
Quand par le col le tient le chat.

Chat mioleur ne fut oncques grand chasseur.

Non plus que sage homme grand cacqueteur.

In the Temple of Liberty which Tiberius Gracchus erected
in Rome, the goddess was represented holding a sceptre in
one hand and a cap in the other, while at her feet reposed a
cat, the symbol of freedom. “ The company of soldiers.
Or dines Augustei, who marched under the command of the
Colonel of Infantry, sub Magistro peditum, bore on their
‘ white ’ or ‘ silver ’ shield, a cat of the colour of the mineral
prase, which is sinople, or sea-green. The cat is ‘ courant ’
and turns its head over its back. Another company of the

12 Felicien Rops’s motto, according to James Huneker, was “J’appelle un chat
un chat.” “Promenades of an Impressionist,” p. 35.

143

The Tiger in the House

same regiment, called ‘ the happy old men ’ {felices seniores)
carried a demi-cat, red, on a buckler gules ; in parma punica
diluciore, with its paws up, as if playing with some one.
Under the same chief, a third cat passant, gules, with one
eye and one ear, was carried by the soldiers qui Alpini
vocabantur.” The Vandals and the Suevi carried a cat
sable upon their armorial bearings, among the Greeks and
Romans. The cat, indeed, plays no inconsiderable part in
heraldry. The Burgundians used the device with the same
significance of liberty and fearlessness and Clotilde, wife of
Clovis the Burgundian, chose for her sigel a cat sable spring-
ing at a mouse. Other noble houses were enamoured of the
emblem. We need exhibit no surprise upon learning that
the Katzen family’s azure shield flaunted a cat argent hold-
ing a rat nor that the crest of the Della Gatta family of Naples
bore a magnificent cat couchant. Two cats argent on an
azure shield signified the Chetaldie family of Limoges and
the motto of the Scotch Clann Chatain is “ Touch not the cat
but (without) a glove.” The Chaffardon family bore on
azure three cats, or two, full face in chief. The cognizance
of Richard III was a boar, passant argent, whence the rhyme
which cost William Collingborne his life:

ispalliot: “ Le Vraye et Parfaicte Science des Armoires” (Paris, 1664).

Seumas, Chief of Clann Fhearghuis of Stra-chur, informs me that the Clann
a Chatain (Children of the Cats) is a great clann with six tribes. The Mackin-
tosh of Mackintosh is Chief of this Clann. I am also indebted to Fhearghuis
for a translation of a song about this Clann:

The cats have come upon us,

The cats have come upon us.

They have come upon us!

To break in upon us.

To lift the spoil.

To steal the kine.

To strike the steeds.

To strip the meads.

They have come!

144

The Cat in Folklore

The Cat, the Rat, and hovel our Dogge,

Rulen all England under an Hogge}^

Cervantes, it will be recalled, speaks of the “ ever victorious
and never vanquished ” Timonel of Carcajona, Prince of New
Biscay, whose shield bore a golden cat and the single word,
“ Miau ” in honour of his lady, the lovely Miaulina, daughter
of the Alfeniquen of the Algarve. More recently the tank
corps of the American army carried on its machines huge
black cats with snarling fangs and flashing electric green eyes
and with the motto, “ Treat ’em rough I ” and the insignia of
the Eighty-first division of the American Expeditionary Forces
were wild cats. The men of this division, conscripts from
North and South Carolina, Florida and Porto Rico, were the
pioneers who Introduced the custom of divisional emblems
into the American army. According to Col. Robert E.
Wyllie of the General Staff, when the Eighty-first division
arrived at Hoboken, the port of embarkation, every man was
wearing the wild cat on his left shoulder. General Shanks,
commander of the port, immediately Informed Washington
army headquarters of the novel distinguishing mark of the
Carolina wild cats and asked if the insignia were authorized.
Before a negative reply reached General Shanks the division
had sailed. When the Eighty-first landed in France the eyes
of every doughboy in other divisions were focussed on the
vicious feline and within the week the other divisions had
invented similar insignia. So general, indeed, had the custom
become that General Pershing realized that an order authoriz-
ing the decorations must follow. This authorization, so far as
I know, was not issued, but the Insignia were never prohibited
and, as all who have seen the returning soldiers must know,
they were eventually used by all divisions.

It is no longer the general custom to name shops or to label

A. R. Frey: “Sobriquets and Nicknames”; Ticknor and Co.; Boston; 1888.
The cat was William Catesby, the dog, Lord Lovel.

The Tiger in the House

them with fantastic signboards but in the old days when such
fashions were in vogue cat signs were as frequent as any others.
A bookseller in London in 1612 called his shop The Cat and
Parrot. Other shops, or inns, bore such quaint titles as Cat
and Cage, Cat and Lion, Cat and Bagpipes, and Cat and
Fiddle. The Catherine Wheel sign put up in honour of
Catherine of Aragon, Queen of Henry VIII, was changed
by the Puritans into Cat and Wheel ! An old English tavern
was called the Salutation and Cat. This is as good as the
Hotel of the Virgin Mary and the Prince of Wales, which I
once visited on the Italian Riviera. The name was calcu-
lated to capture both the Catholic and the English trade.

Of the French signs. La Maison dii Chat qiii Pelote (used
zy Balzac), Le Chat qui Peche, and above all, Le Chat Noir
are the most common. The latter once served for restaurants
or bakeries but latterly it has been identified with one of the
most celebrated of the Paris cabarets. The cabaret itself has
passed but the name still persists. Even in New York a
restaurant carries it and so does a well-known magazine.
Parisian shoe-makers frequently affected Le Chat Botte.
Le Chat qui Fume is a charming name. One of Anatole
France’s stories bears as its title the name of a little Parisian
Cafe, Le Chat Maigre. An American dry-cleaning establish-
ment uses a cat washing clothes for its trademark.

The cat leaps through so many nursery rhymes in all tongues,
native and exotic, that every child must know at least half a
dozen of them. The following lines seem to have been pro-
phetic:

Jack Spratt
Had a cat;

It had but one ear;

It went to buy butter.

When butter was dear.

This one is charmingly suggestive :

146

The Cat in Folklore

Poor Dog Bright,

Ran off with all his might.

Because the cat was after him.

Poor Dog Bright.

Poor Cat Fright,

Ran off with all her might.

Because the dog was after her.

Poor Cat Fright.

Alphabetical nursery rhymes are always popular with mothers
because they are considered semi-instructive. Variations of
the following lines are numberless :

A, B, C, tumble down D,

The cat’s in the cupboard and can’t see me.

A French version is:

A, B, C,

Le chat est alle

Dans le neige; en retournant

H avait les souliers tous blancs.

Something like this occurs also in German, Yiddish, Russian,
Patagonian, and early Australian,

The rhyme beginning

Hey, diddle, diddle.

The cat and the fiddle.

is as well known as anything in Shakespeare. Nor can there
be many who have neglected to learn

Ding, dong, bell. Pussy’s in the well.

Pussy cat. Pussy cat, where have you been?

The three little kittens, they lost their mittens.

147

The Tiger in the House

This is a very pleasant ditty:

Hey, my kitten, my kitten.

Hey, my kitten, my deary;

Such a sweet pet as this

W as neither far nor neary.

And this is philosophical and fatalistic:

Pussy-cat ate the dumplings, the dumplhigs ;

Pussy-cat ate the dumplings.

Mamma stood by, and cried, “ Oh, fie!

Why did you eat the dumplings?"

In many other rhymes the cat is an important figure. For
instance in the epic poem about the woman who wanted to get
her pig over the stile it was the cat that killed the rat and in
“ A frog he would a-wooing go,”

A cat and her kittens came tumbling in.

With a rowley powley, gammon and spinach.

There is also the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that
lay in the house that Jack built.

The French rhymes, while often not so fantastic, are natu-
rally lovelier. What could be more irresistible than

Le chat sauta sur les souris,

II les croqua toute la nuit.

Gentil coquiqui.

Coco des moustaches, mirlo joli,

Gentil coquiqui.

Here is another:

Sur ma gouttiere un four fe vis
JJn chat de bonne mine
Qui, sans s’occuper des souris,

Miaulait en sourdine.

Ah! il m’en souviendra,

148

PRINCE DORUS AND THE ENCHANTED CAT
From Prince Dorns by Charles Lamb: London; iSii

The Cat in Folklore

Du chat de ma voisine.

LarirUj

An old Mother Goose rhyme has it that

Puss-cat Mew jumped over a coal;

In her best petticoat burnt a great hole;

Puss-cat Mew shan’t have any milk

Till her best petticoat’s mended with silk.

With this verse for his inspiration E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen
composed a fairy story, “ Puss-Cat Mew,” which is a mixture
of familiar folklore elements: the ogres are the giants of Jack
and the Beanstalk and Joe Brown, the miller’s son who is
befriended in the magic forest by a tortoise-shell cat, who, of
course, at the proper moment becomes a beautiful and
marriageable young lady and the daughter of no less a per-
sonage than the Queen of the Fairies, is easily recognizable.
Still when I recently reread the story I again felt its charm and
its thrill and the horrible man-eating ogres still inspired terror.

There are so many folk-tales about cats that some enter-
prising young man of the future may fill a large book with
these alone. Very often the cat plays a cruel or reprehen-
sible part in these stories but he never plays a stupid or foolish
role. In one of La Fontaine’s fables, indeed, the cat outwits
even the fox. He is seldom lacking in wit; indeed he may be
regarded as the Till Eulenspiegel of the animal world. It
is well to remember Andrew Lang’s casual remark that “ Ani-
mals are always most intelligent when most depraved.” Of
the stories “Puss in Boots’’^® is the most familiar; some
form of this fable occurs in almost every language. Mr.
Lang points out that it is a “ moral ” story in Russia, Sicily,
among the Arabs, and at Zanzibar. In these countries the
cat assists the man from motives of gratitude. In France,

1® Jules-Severin Caillot has written a pretty sequel to this tale: “La Chatte
Blanche,” in “Contes apres les contes”; Plon-Nourrit; Paris; 1919.

149

The Tiger in the House

Italy, India, and elsewhere it is an immoral story; the cat is
a swindler and the Marquis de Carabas is his accomplice.
Gaston de Paris is convinced that the Zanzibar version is the
original. In this version the man Is ungrateful to the kind
beast and awakes to find his prosperity a dream. “ The
White Cat,” which the Comtesse D’Aulnoy gave to France in
1682 is a wholly pretty story In which the graceful feline
with her pattes de velours is transformed Into a princess.
Gelett Burgess has symbolized this theme In a novel bearing
the name of the original sory.

The tale of Dick Whittington and his cat has afforded scope
for research work among the English folklorists and historians
which still continues. W. R. S. Ralston writes In ” The Nine-
teenth Century”: ‘‘There used to exist In the Mercers’

Hall a portrait of Whittington, dated 1536, in which a black-
and-white cat figured at his left hand. A still existing por-
trait by Reginald Elstrack, who flourished about 1590, rep-
resents him with his hand resting on a cat. The story is told
that the hand originally rested on a skull, but that In deference
to public opinion a cat was substituted, which proves that the
legend or the history had by that time completely spread.
That is also proved by a reference to the cat legend in Hey-
wood’s If Y oil Know Not Me, and by another In Beaumont and
Fletcher’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle. Newgate gaol
was rebuilt by Whittington’s executors, and a statue, with a cat
at his feet, is said to have been set up on the gate, and to have
remained there until the fire of 1666. Moreover a piece of
plate on which figured ‘ heraldic cats ’ was presented to the
Mercers’ company in 1572; and In the house at Gloucester,
which the Whittingtons occupied till 1460, there was dug up a
stone, when repairs were made in 1862, on which In basso
relievo, is represented the figure of a boy carrying in his arms
a cat. The workmanship appears to be of the fifteenth cen-
tury. This is all that can be said in favour of the legend.
Aigalnst it, besides its Inherent improbability, may be called as

ISO

The Cat in Folklore

witnesses many folk-tales, which at least suggest that the
story is one of the commonplaces of fiction, capable of being
associated with any historical or fictitious personage.” So
some destroyers of our belief in Santa Claus assure us that
Whittington’s cat was a boat, while others affirm that trading
or buying and selling at a profit was called achat and probably
pronounced ” acat ” in the fifteenth century.

Moncrif relates an enchanting Hindu story, which, it would
seem to me, has not been retold sufficiently often: At the

court of Salamgam, King of the Indies, a Brahmin and a Peni-
tent each boasted that he was the most virtuous. A trial was
proposed and the Brahmin offered to ascend to the Heaven of
Devendiren and return therefrom with the flower of the tree
called Parisadam, only indigenous to that particular celestial
realm. He made good his promise, returning with the blossom
to the great astonishment of all the court with the exception
of the Penitent, who refused to be impressed. ” My virtue
is so great,” he asserted, ” that I can send my cat for the
flower of Parisadam.” He was requested to do so and im-
mediately the adorable Patripatan ascended to the skies in
full view of the King and his nobles. Now, however. Fate
interfered with the Penitent’s plans. The Heaven of Deven-
diren was inhabited by forty-eight million goddesses who had
for husbands one hundred and twenty-four gods of which
Devendiren was the sovereign. Now the instant the favourite
goddess of the King of the Gods set her eyes on Patripatan
she made up her mind to keep him for her very own. Deven-
diren, after he had listened to the cat, explained to the god-
dess that Patripatan was awaited with impatience by the
court of Salamgam, that the reputation of the Penitent was

Among the analogues of the Whittington story may be mentioned the Brit-
tany black cat who made silver; the Danish dog who barked money; and the
gold-producing horse or, as in the Midas story, a ram or swine with fleece or
bristles of gold. On page 43 of W. R. S. Ralston’s “Russian Folk-Tales”
(Smith, Elder and Co., London, 1873) you may find a Russian story which is very
similar.

The Tiger in the House

at stake, and that the greatest affront one could offer to a
mortal was to steal his cat. The goddess listened inatten-
tively to this argument and finally promised, as a special fa-
vour to his godship, that she would return the beloved puss
in three centuries. The court waited through this period
without any other inconvenience than impatience because the
Penitent by the power of his virtue was able to preserve
everybody’s youth. When the time had elapsed the sky red-
dened, and the cat appeared on a throne in a cloud of a
thousand hues, bearing in his paws an entire branch of the
tree of Parisadam. I believe the King awarded the croix de
vertu to Patripatan. The only incredible part of the story
is that the goddess should ever have permitted herself to be
separated from a cat she had known and loved for three cen-
turies.

One of the Japanese fairy stories translated by Lafcadio
Hearn is called “ The Boy Who Drew Cats.” This boy, the
son of a poor farmer, had been sent to a priest, so that he
might be trained as an acolyte. The child, however, refused
to take an interest in his new studies and spent all his time
drawing cats. The old priest, realizing that the boy’s talent
was for art rather than for religion, sent him out into the
world. In his wanderings the lad passed the night in a de-
serted temple but before he went to sleep he could not resist
painting cats on the naked white screens. In his dreams he
heard shrieks and in the morning he awakened to find an
enormous goblin-rat lying dead on the floor, while the whisk-
ers and jaws of his painted cats were red with blood.

An amusing Persian story tells of a long-sighted cat with
fascinating eyes, long whiskers, and sharp teeth, who hunted
like a lion in the city of Kerman. One day, perceiving the
wine cellar of his house open, the cat walked in and caught a
mouse. Thereafter he repented, went to the mosque, passed
his paws over his face, poured water on his paws, and
anointed himself as he had seen the faithful do at the hours

152

JAPANESE WOMEN AND CAT

From a Japanese print by Mamaro in the collection of Arthur Davison Ficke

The Cat in Folklore

of prayer. He swore he would never kill another mouse,
praised Allah, and began to weep. The mice heard of this
oath and held a celebration; a few days later the king of the
mice suggested that gifts be carried to this temperate cat.
So the mice brought wine, mussels stuffed with rice, raisins,
and pignolia nuts; melon seeds and lumps of cheese; little
cakes iced with sugar; Indian shawls and cloaks. Upon the
receipt of these presents the cat reasoned thus : “ I am re-

warded for becoming a pious Mussulman. It is clear that
Allah is appeased.” Then he sprang among the mice and
killed a great number of them. The others went their way
in sorrow. The king of the mice, when he heard of this un-
warranted assault, declared war on the cats and three hundred
and thirty thousand mice went forth, armed with swords,
guns, and spears. The cats on horseback came out to meet
them and the armies fell upon each other. So many cats
and mice were killed that finally there was no ground for the
horses to stand on. At length the king of the cats was cap-
tured and condemned to execution. He was carried to the
block, bound paw to paw, but he burst his fetters, darted here
and there, seizing and slaying till the whole army of mice
was routed and there was none left to oppose him.

Gottfried Keller’s story of “ Spiegel, das Katzchen ” has
a folk air and was probably not entirely the invention of the
author. A certain wizard in a Swiss village, taking a walk
one day, met a ram-cat looking very thin and miserable. He
had been the favourite feline of a rich old gentlewoman, whose
sudden death had left him without means of support. Now
cat’s grease was an invaluable ingredient in certain magical
preparations, but the thaumaturglcal condition prescribed that
the cat must make a willing donation of it. The wizard
saw his opportunity in the present situation. Spiegel was
hungry and he offered him a month’s luxurious living in re-
turn for his grease. The bargain was struck and the wizard
In “Die Leute von SeldvTyla,” 1856.

153

The Tiger in the House

fitted up an apartment as an artificial landscape with a little
wood on a mountain and a little lake. Tiny roasted birds
perched on the trees. Baked mice, seasoned with stuffing and
larded with bacon, peered out of the mountain caves. Fish
swam In the milk lake. Spiegel enjoyed himself but as he
found himself getting very fat a ruse occurred to him. To-
wards the end of the month he stopped eating and grew very
thin again. He continued this procedure every time his waist
line Increased In size until the wizard accused him of trying
to escape from his bargain. It was on this day, and no other,
that forcible feeding was Invented! But Spiegel was again
inspired; he told the wizard that he knew where 10,000 florins
were burled at the bottom of a well, waiting as the wedding
portion of a man who could find a beautiful and penniless
maiden. The story was false. The money existed but a
curse lay upon It. The wizard, however, took Spiegel on a
chain to the well, saw the gold bricks and believed In them,
and released his prisoner. Now th? cat was the friend of an
owl-companlon to an old hag; with the aid of a magic net
these two contrived to seize the beldam and transform her
Into a personable young lady. In this form she married the
wizard at high noon as Is the respectable custom, but at night-
fall she regained her rightful shape, so that he found himself
possessed of a hag for a wife and a pot of cursed gold for
a dowry. Spiegel, of course, lived happily ever after.

Thomas A. Janvier found the following story among some
old Mexican papers and printed It In “ Stories of Old New
Spain”: “It was about the year 1540 that the Reverend

Father Friar Francisco de Tembleque felt stirring In his heart
a good desire (that, assuredly, God put there) to build an
aqueduct by which the towns of Otumba and Zempoala should
be supplied abundantly with water wholesome to drink —
which at that time the people of these towns were compelled
to bring from springs seven leagues away. And his plan was
to make an aqueduct over all that distance, carrying it across

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three wide valleys on no less than one hundred and thirty-six
arches, and making over the deepest of the valleys one arch
so great that beneath it might pass (had there been any such
thereabouts) a ship under full sail. And to this work the
servant of God — for so Father Tembleque was called — set
himself with a stout heart; and the Indians worked for him
joyfully. And at the spot where the great arch was to be,
in what then was a tangle of wooded wild land, he built a
little chapel to the Glory of Our Lady of Belen, and close
beside the chapel he made for himself a cell so narrow that
scarcely was there room within it for him to lie down to
sleep.

“ And God showed his love to his servant by giving to
dwell with him a grey cat, which every day from the wild
woodland round about brought quails for his master’s sus-
tenance; and in the season of rabbits, a rabbit. And between
the servant of God and this cat there was much love.

“ To Father Tembleque there came one day a stranger,
who courteously, yet with a curious particularity, questioned
him about the progress of the great work that he had in hand.
For certain persons of the baser sort had said in the ears of
the Viceroy that Father Tembleque was wasting his time and
the substance of the church in striving to do an impossible
thing; and this stranger really was an alcalde of the court,
whom, that he might know the truth, the Viceroy had sent
thus secretly to ask searching questions and to see for himself
how the work went on. And as the two communed together,
behold the cat came out of the wood to where they stood in
talk and laid a rabbit at his master’s feet!

“When said the servant of God: ‘ Brother Cat, a guest

hath come to us, and therefore it is necessary that thou shalt
bring me this day not one rabbit, but two.’

“ Hearing these words, the cat in due obedience, betook
himself once more to the thicket. But the alcalde, thinking
that this might be a trick that was put upon him, sent after

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The Tiger in the House

the cat to spy upon him one of his own servants. And the
servant presently beheld a greater wonder. For in a mo-
ment the cat met with another rabbitd*^ which he caught with-
out any resistance at all on the creature’s part, and with it
returned to his master again: thus plainly showing that all
had been disposed thus by God.

“ And the Senor Alcalde, being so substantially assured of
the miracle, returned to the Viceroy and said, ‘ Though it
seems to be impossible to bring the water by the way that Fa-
ther Tembleque hath chosen, and though the work that he hath
set himself to do seems to be beyond the power of man to ac-
complish, yet assuredly will he succeed; for I have seen that
which proves beyond a peradventure that God hath vouch-
safed to him his all-powerful aid and he told to the Viceroy
the whole of the miracle which through the cat had been
wrought. Therefore did the Viceroy encourage Father Tem-
bleque in his great work; and God’s blessing continuing upon
it, in seventeen years’ time tbe aqueduct was finished — the
very aqueduct through which the water comes to the towns of
Otumba and Zempoala at the present day.”

Doubtless many miraculous cat stories are to be found in

Stories of cats who have fed families are not uncommon. There is, for
instance, that of the ploughman who lived at the foot of the Orchils and his cat,
Mysie. The ploughman had long been ill — his home was in poverty — when
the doctor said the poor man would die if his strength was not kept up by
stimulants and animal food. “ I put awa’ my marriage gown and ring to get
him wine,” related the ploughman’s wife, “but we had naething in the house
but milk and meal. Surely, sir, it was the Lord himself that put it into that
cat’s head; for that same night she brought in a fine young rabbit, and laid it
on tlie verra bed ; and the next night the same, and every night the same, for a
month, whiles a rabbit and whiles a bird, till George was up, and going to his
work as usual. But she never brought anything after that.” Agnes Repplier
found a similar story in Watson’s Annals, which she quotes on page 237 of
“ The Fireside Sphinx.”

Found by Mr. Janvier in MS. of Fray Agustin de Vetancourt in the Meno-
logio Franciscano, October 1, of his Teatro Mexicano (City of Mexico; 1698;
folio) .

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The Cat in Folklore

the archives of Negro folklore. I remember one which I
have heard both Kitty Cheatham and Bert Williams tell. An
itinerant Negro preacher, finding himself a long distance from
the next farmhouse at an inconveniently late hour, decided to
accommodate himself for the night in a deserted hut. He
lighted a fire in the fireplace and settled down before it to
read his Bible when suddenly a black kitten appeared. He
caressed the animal and was indeed glad to have company
for he began to recall a legend that the house was haunted.
Presently a larger cat joined the kitten and the preacher was
astonished to hear him remark, “ We cain’t do nothin’ till
Martin gits here.” The old man, however, decided that his
ears must have deceived him and continued to read his Bible
aloud fervidly. Pretty soon along came a cat the size of a
collie dog, who settled down on his haunches alongside the
others. “ We cain’t do nothin’ till Martin gits here,” he
remarked plaintively. The preacher’s knees shook and his
kinky hair began to grow straighter, but he bent over tbe
Holy Word and began to intone the lines. But the next ar-
rival was a cat as big as a lion. He sat down with the others
and his tone was an angry deep growl as he said, “ We cain’t
do nothin’ till Martin gits here.” This was too much for
the preacher who dropped his Bible and fled, shouting over
bis shoulder, “ You tell Martin when he gits here dat I cain’t
wait for him ! ”

In Russia, according to Thiselton Dyer, the cat enjoys a
better reputation among the people than she does in some
other countries. There is a curious legend current about Mos-
cow that when Lucifer once tried to creep back into Paradise,
he assumed the form of a mouse. The dog and the cat were
on guard at the gates, and the dog allowed the evil one to
pass, but the cat pounced upon him and so defeated another
treacherous attempt against human felicity.

At any rate the Russian folk-tales in which puss plays

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The Tiger in the House

prominent part are usually based on accurate observation of
the animal’s traits. The following fable of Ivan Krilof cer-
tainly epitomizes the spirit of the cat;

A certain cook, rather more educated than his fellows,
went from his kitchen one day to a neighbouring tavern, leav-
ing his cat at home to protect his store of food from the mice.
But on his return he found the floor strewn with the fragments
of a pie and Vaska the cat crouching in a corner behind a
vinegar barrel, purring with satisfaction, and busily engaged
in disposing of a chicken.

“Ah, glutton, ah, evil-doer!” exclaimed the reproachful
cook. “ Are you not ashamed to be seen by these walls, let
alone living witnesses? You, an honourable cat up to this
time, one who might be pointed out as a model of discretion!
And now, think of the disgrace ! Now, all the neighbours
will say, ‘Vaska is a rogue; Vaska is a thief. Vaska must
be kept out of the kitchen, even out of the courtyard, like a
ravenous wolf from the sheepfold. He is corrupt; he is a
pest, the plague of the neighbourhood.’ ”

While the cook was delivering this discourse Vaska the cat
ate the whole of the chicken.

Chapter Six: The Cat and the Law

From the epoch of the cat’s godhood down to the modern
moment laws have been passed to protect the cat, laws which
have demanded that man treat the cat in such and such a
fashion. Egyptians cat-killers were punished by death.
Diodorus writes of a brave Roman soldier who was the victim
of this law. It is interesting to compare this extreme meas-
ure with the old English common law which held both cats
and dogs as “ no property, being base by nature,” but it is
also well to remember that at one time in England larceny
was punished by the death penalty. If a cat had been con-
sidered property the theft of a puss would have led the thief
to the block or the scaffold. The English “ Rule of Nuns ”
issued in the early thirteenth century, forbade the holy wmmen
to keep any beast but a cat. A canon of a date nearly a hun-
dred years earlier forbade nuns, even abbesses, from wearing
costlier skins than those of lambs and cats. The Welsh laws
concerning domestic lions were formulated in the tenth cen-
tury. In i8i8 a decree was issued at Ypres in Flanders for-
bidding the throwing of pussies from high towers in com-
memoration of a Christmas Spectacle. And today the So-
ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals endeavours to
make the punishment fit the crime for anyone who maliciously
mistreats a cat.

But through the ages law-makers have wisely, it would seem,
allowed puss to go more or less her own way, while restricting
her master’s actions in regard to her. I say wisely, for it
cannot be considered the part of wisdom to create laws which
will not be obeyed, and I think I have made it fairly clear that
the cat will not obey laws. A cat makes no attempt to gov-

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The Tiger in the House

ern other cats and he will not tolerate such an attempt on the
part of man. While other animals are leashed and muzzled,
barned and fenced in, puss wanders free. The unclean dojr
is expelled from the mosque but grimalkin is welcomed there.
She rubs her legs against the sultan’s guests at dinner and
attends state banquets at the White House. ^ So she sits at
the prelate’s table or by the humble farmer’s hearth, but by
night she wanders the heath or the rooftop, to view, as one
poet has ingeniously explained, the surrounding country!

Even in the middle ages when it was quaintly held that
animals were responsible for crimes” (I say quaintly because
it is perfectly obvious that both the word and the idea are
human inventions) and they were tried and condemned to
death and to other punishments, including torture, the cat es-
caped.^ In the list of these trials given by E. P. Evans
there is not one single case in which a cat was the defendant.
The cat appears, indeed, only in the testimony of these trials.
Once, for instance, a sixteenth century French jurist, Bartho-
lomew Chassenee, complained that his clients, some rats, were
prevented from appearing in court at Autun, because of a
stretch of cat country that they would be forced to cross on
their journey. Modern lawyers will be glad to know that
Chassenee successfully defended his rats. By virtue of the
old Germanic law cats often appeared as witnesses at the trials
of thieves and murderers.®

1 See “Slippers, the White House Cat,” by Jacob A. Riis: “Saint Nicholas”;
January 1908. Theodore Roosevelt was not the first of our presidents to be a
cat-lover. There was at least one other, Abraham Lincoln.

- The middle ages cannot be held entirely responsible for these laws. It was
incorporated into the Mosaic Law that an ox who killed a man was subject to
death, just as if it had been a man who had murdered one of his fellows. See
Exodus, XXI, 28: “ If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die; then the ox

shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox
shall be quit.”

3 As a witch’s companion she did not escape, but I have fully covered that
point in a preceding chapter.

“ The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals.”

5 Same work, p. 11.

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The Cat and the Law

In passing it is interesting to observe that St. Ives, the
patron saint of lawyers is represented as accompanied by a
cat. And here again, if it were necessary, we might invoke
symbolism to explain the simple truth that holy men as well
as devils found the cat the most attractive of animals. The
profound wisdom, the concealed claws, the stealthy approach,
and the final spring, all seem to typify the superior attorney.
We should not be astonished, therefore, that Cardinal Wolsey
placed his cat by his side while acting in his judicial capacity
as Lord Chancellor.

The most interesting laws concerning cats were formulated
during the tenth century by Howel Dda, a King of South
Wales, who, perceiving that the customs of his country were
being violated, called the archbishops, the bishops, the nobles,
and other chosen men to meet at Y ty Gwyn ar Dav with
him. The whole of Lent was spent by this body in the pres-
ence of the King in fasting and prayer; then Howel selected
from the assembly twelve of the wisest men and adding to
their number a doctor of laws, Blegywryd by name, com-
mitted them to the task of examining, retaining, expounding,
and abrogating the laws. When the work was completed
Howel sanctioned it. Wales, however, was of considerable
size and it was not long before local distinctions arose which
resulted in the eventual formulation of three separate Codes,
Venedotian, Dimetian, and Gwentian. It is from these
Codes that the following curious passages relating to cats have
been extracted.

According to the Venedotian Code: The worth of a kit-

ten from the night it is kittened until it shall open its eyes is a
legal penny; and from that time until it shall kill mice, two
legal pence; and after it shall kill mice, four legal pence; and
so it shall always remain. The penny, at this period, was
equal to the value of a lamb, a kid, a goose, or a hen; a cock
or a gander was worth twopence, a sheep or a goat fourpence.
The qualities of a cat, continues the Code, are to see, to hear,

i6l

The Tiger in the House

to kill mice, to have her claws entire, to rear and not to de-
vour her kittens, and if she be bought and be deficient in
any of these qualities, let one third of her worth be returned.

In the Dimetian and Gwentian Codes distinctions are drawn
between cats and cats. The Dimetian Code says: The

worth of a cat that is killed or stolen: its head is to be put
downwards upon a clean, even floor, with its tail lifted up-
wards, and thus suspended, whilst wheat is poured about it,
until the tip of its tail be covered and that is to be its worth;
lif the corn cannot be had, a milch sheep with her lamb and
its wool is its value, if it be a cat which guards the King’s
barn. The worth of a common cat is four legal pence.

The Gwentian Code says: Whoever shall kill a cat that

guards a house or a barn of the King or shall take it stealth-
ily; it is to be held with its head to the ground and its tail
up, the ground being swept and then clean wheat is to be
poured about it until the tip of its tail be hidden: and that
is its worth. Another cat is four legal pence in value.

There seem to be obvious difficulties involved in the carry-
ing out of this law. In the first place it would appear to be
necessary to capture both the thief and the stolen cat. In the
second place no self-respecting cat would permit herself to be
suspended by the tail. She would scratch and bite and turn
and twist and curl until it would be impossible to go through
with the experiment unless she were dead and certainly the
Welsh judges would not kill the King’s cat merely in order
to punish her thief. Thirdly it would seem to be manifestly
impossible to enforce this law if the King’s cat happened to
be a tailless Manx cat.

There are further laws: The Dimetian Code says : Who-

ever shall sell a cat is to answer for her not going a cater-
wauling every moon; and that she devour not her kittens; and
that she have ears, eyes, teeth, and nails, and is a good
mouser. The Gwentian Code provides that there shall be no
Manx cats: The qualities of a cat are that it be perfect of

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The Cat and the Law

ear, perfect of eye, perfect of teeth, perfect of tall, perfect
of claw, and without marks of fire; and that it kill mice well
and that it shall not devour its kittens and that it be not
caterwauling on every new moon.

The importance of the cat to the community was recog-
nized by these Welsh laws which provided that one cat was
necessary to make a lawful hamlet together with nine
buildings, one plough, one kiln, one churn, one bull, one
cock, and one herdsman. The dog and the horse are not
mentioned.

Another interesting detail of the Dimetian Code relates
to the separation of man and wife: the goods and chattels
were to be divided but the husband took the cat if there was
but one; if there were others they went to the wife. The
stress laid on puss at this period, her comparatively high
value, leads Pennant ® to the very credible conclusion that
her importation must have been recent, as the animal breeds
so rapidly that in a few years a dozen felines could populate
a country.

Notwithstanding the laws of Howel the question as to
whether or not the cat is a property continues to be discussed
in its legal aspects down to the present day. There seems to
be difference of opinion in the matter and the judgments in
law suits of this character seem to depend on whether or no
the judge is a cat-lover. Fortunately most judges are cat-
lovers.

In 1865, Monsieur Richard, the juge de paix of Fontaine-
bleau rendered a memorable decision. An inhabitant of the
town, annoyed by cats who molested his garden, set traps and
caught fifteen. The owners of the cats brought the man to
trial.

“ Considering,” said the learned judge in his opinion, “ that

® “ British Zoology.”

^ This phrase and such words as “ master,” “ mistress,” etc., which occur in
this book are used purely for convenience. Of course no one ever owned a cat.

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The Tiger in the House

the law does not permit the individual to do justice to himself
in his own person;

“ That article 479 of the Penal Code, and Article 1385
of the Code Napoleon, recognize several kinds of cats, not-
ably the wild cat, as a noxious animal for the destruction of
which a reward Is granted, but that the domestic cat is not
affected by these articles in the eyes of the legislator;

“ That the domestic cat, not being a thing of nought {res
niiUius), but the property of a master, ought to be protected
by the law;

“ That the utility of the cat as a destroyer of mischievous
animals of the rodent kind being indisputable, equity demands
the extension of Indulgence to an animal which is tolerated
by the law;

“ That even the domestic cat Is In some degree of a mixed
nature, that Is to say, an animal always partly wild,
and which must remain so ijy reason of its destiny and
purpose. If it is to render those services which are expected
from it;

“ That although the law of 1790, art. 12 in fine, permits the
killing of poultry, the assimilation of cats with these birds is
by no means correct, since the fowl species are destined to
be killed sooner or later, and that they can be kept In a man-
ner under the hand of their owners, sub custodia, In a com-
pletely enclosed and secure place, while this cannot be said
of the cat, for It Is impossible to put that animal under lock
and key, if it Is to obey the law of its nature;

“ That the asserted right in certain cases of killing the
dog, which is a dangerous animal and prompt to attack with-
out being rabid, cannot be held to imply as a consequence the
right to kill a cat, which is an animal not calculated to in-
spire fear, and always ready to run away;

“ That nothing in the law authorizes citizens to set traps,
in order, by an appetizing bait, to entice the Innocent cats
of an entire quarter as well as the guilty ones;

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The Cat and the Law

“That no one ought to do to the property {chose)o{ an-
other that which he would not wish to have done to his own
property;

“That all goods being either movables {meiihles) or im-
movables {immeuhles) according to article 516 of the Code
Napoleon, it results therefrom that the cat, contrary to ar-
ticle 128 of the same Code, is incontestably a movable
(meuhle) protected by the law, and therefore that the own-
ers of animals which are destroyed are entitled to claim the
application of article 479, clause i, of the Penal Code, which
punishes those who have voluntarily caused damage to the
movable property of others.” ®

A similar decision was rendered in the sheriff’s court at
Perth, Scotland, in the late seventies. The cat had killed the
plaintiff’s pigeon on a neighbour’s premises. The learned
sheriff in his decision said:

“ It was quite legitimate for the plaintiff to keep a pigeon,
but just as much so for the defendant to keep a cat. The
latter is more a domestic animal than a pigeon. But there
are no obligations on the owner of a cat to restrain it to
the house. The plaintiff’s plea is that the natural instinct of
the feline race is to prey on birds as well as mice. So it was
argued that the owner of the cat should prevent the pos-
sibility of its coming into contact with its favourite sport.
But it is equally true that the owner of a bird should ex-
ercise similar precaution to prevent its coming within the
range of a hostile race. If the defendant’s cat had tres-
passed into the plaintiff’s house or aviary where the bird was
secured, there might be ground for finding the owner of the
cat liable for the consequences of its being at large. With
parity of reason had the bird intruded itself upon the ter-
ritory of the cat and there had been slain, there could have
been no recourse because the owner of the bird should have
prevented its escape. In the present case it appears that both

® This decision was afterwards disputed before the Correctional Tribunal.

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The Tiger in the House

the quadruped and the winged animal were in trespass on neu-
tral territory. It was the duty of the plaintiff to take the guar-
dianship of the bird said to be so valuable and therefore both
owners are equally to blame and the case must be viewed
as arising from natural law, for which neither owner without
cidpa can be answerable. The defendant being at first not
sympathetic with the loss of the plaintiff, but rather put him
at defiance, and forced him to prove it was the defendant’s
cat who slew his bird, the defendant will be acquitted but
without costs.” ®

In Maine it has been decided that the cat is a domestic
animal within the jurisdiction of the statute which provides
that “ any person may lawfully kill a dog which ... is found
worrying, wounding, or killing any domestic animal, when
said dog is outside of the inclosure or immediate care of
its owner and keeper.” The plaintiff sued the defendant, al-
leging that he had killed a valuable foxhound belonging to
him, and the defendant replied that he had killed it because
the dog was chasing and worrying his cat. The court held
that this was sufficient justification and gave an exhaustive
view of the law as to felines.^® Ingham cites a Canadian case
in which the judge decided: “A person may have property

in a cat and therefore an action will lie to recover damages for
killing it. There may be circumstances under which it would
be justifiable to kill a cat; but it is not justifiable to do

“Harrison Weir (“Our Cats and All About Them,” p. 207) quotes an “Arti-
cled Clerk” writing in “The Standard” with regard to the illegality of killing
cats: “It is clearly laid down in ‘Addison on Torts,’ that a person is not justi-

fied in killing his neighbour’s cat, which he finds on his land, unless the animal
is in the act of doing some injurious act which can only be prevented by its
slaughter. And it has been decided by the case of ‘ Townsend v. Watken,’ 9
last 277, that if a person sets on his lands a trap for foxes, and baits it with
such strong-smelling meat as to attract his neighbour’s cat on to his land, to the
trap, and such animal is thereby killed or injured, he is liable for the act,
though he had no intention of doing it, and though the animal ought not to
have been on his land.”

i““The cat a ‘domestic animal’ and ‘property’”: “The American Law Re-
view”; Vol. 49, p. 917.

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The Cat and the Law

so merely because it Is a trespasser, even though after
game.”

In another case the owner of a cat was not held liable to the
owner of a canary bird killed by it, the court considering that
cats to some extent “ may be regarded as still undomesticated
and their predatory habits are but a remnant of their wild
nature.”

But an Attorney-General of the State of Maryland, evi-
dently no fellnophile, handed down a decision which was a
cruel blow to the owners of cats. A certain citizen of Bal-
timore (I hope this was not Mencken) stole a fine maltese
cat from a neighbour, who had him arrested for theft. When
the case came up for trial the prisoner’s counsel entered the
plea that It was impossible for any one to steal a cat, as that
animal is not property, and that to take forcible possession
of a feline, even though It be a pet and wear a ribbon and
answer to its name, is not a legal offense. The astonishing
judge held the argument to be good and the more astonishing
Attorney-General, to whom the case was appealed, agreed
with him. The latter in his formal opinion, declared that
the cat Is really nothing but a wild animal, that It Is of no
use to man, and that the taking of a cat without the owner’s
consent is not an indictable offence. Since this extraordinary
decision was rendered cat-owners with pussy-baskets have
been seen leaving Baltimore on every train. Cats themselves,
however, have as yet entered no objection to the decree,
arguing doubtless that it stands to reason If a man steals you
he wants you pretty badly and is therefore likely to give you
more liver, fish, and other delectables than the man with whom
you were living before.

In Georgia it Is held to be libellous to say that a young
lady said that her mama acted like a cat. Edgar Saltus has

John H. Ingham: “The Law of Animals.”

Gertrude B. Rolfe: “The Cat in Law”; “North American Review”; Vol.
i6o, p. 251.

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The Tiger in the House

written variations on a similar theme in his story, “ The 7'op
of the Heap.”

It is not an uncommon occurrence for cats to be left prop-
erty by will. I shall presently discuss the case of Mad-
emoiselle Dupuy. Lord Chesterfield left life pensions to his
cats and their offspring. This sounds eternal. Others have
done this. In fact every few months you may read of such
a will In the public prints. It is the custom of relatives in
such cases to attempt to break the wills, and in most instances
they have been successful. But there is at least one case in
which a notable cat charity has been preserved through sev-
eral centuries. About 658 of the Hegira (A.D. 1280) the
Sultan, El-Daher-Beybars, having a particular affection for
cats, at his death bequeathed a garden known as Gheyt-el-
Qouttah (the cat’s orchard), situated near his mosque out-
side Cairo, for the support of needy cats. This garden has
been sold and resold, but until at least a comparatively recent
date and probably up to the present moment, the owner still
continues to carry out the terms of the will. At the hour
of afternoon prayer a daily distribution of refuse from the
butchers’ stalls is made to the cats of the neighbourhood.
“ At the usual hour, all the terraces in the vicinity of the
Mehkemeh (outer court) are crowded with cats; they come
jumping from house to house across the narrow streets of
Cairo, in haste to secure their share; they slide down the
walls, and glide Into the court, where, with astonishing
tenacity and much growling, they dispute the scanty morsels
of a meal sadly out of proportion to the number of guests.
The old hands clear the food off in a moment; the youngsters
and the new-comers, too timid to fight for their chance, are
reduced to the humble expedient of licking the ground.”

There are other ways in which cats figure in the law.
Marine insurance does not cover damage done to cargo by
the depredations of rats, but if the owner of the damaged

IB “Purple and Fine Women.” M. Prisse d’Avennes.

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The Cat and the Law

goods can prove that the ship was sent to sea without a cat he
can recover damages from the shipmaster. Again, according
to English law, a ship found at sea with no living creature on
hoard is considered a derelict and is forfeited to the Admi-
ralty, the finders, or the King, but it has often happened that,
from its hatred of facing the waves, a cat remaining on board
has saved the vessel from being condemned.

Periodically letters and editorials appear In the American
newspapers concerning the advisability of licensing cats or in
some way depriving them of their power of Increasing, or
restraining their actions. In the bird journals hysterical gen-
tlemen moan loudly over the destruction of feathered song-
sters and demand that strong measures be taken as preventa-
tlves. I am not at all sure that laws have not been passed
In certain states limiting the freedom of puss.

Nevertheless the cat preserves his liberty. As the learned
judge of Fontainebleau remarked, you cannot restrain a cat
without changing his nature; he might have added that you
cannot change his nature. A cat will preserve his independ-
ence at any cost, even that of his life. Recently an adven-
turous tom climbed the switchboard of the lighting works of
Cardiff, became entangled In the wires, and plunged the city
In darkness. The effort cost him his life but he accom-
plished his purpose. Therefore senators and representatives,
who find no difficulty In fettering human-kind in a hundred
ways, go very slowly in formulating laws regarding the cat.
They know perfectly well that the cat will refuse to obey
these laws. It Is amusing and delightful to observe this little
animal escaping the onerous obligations of these United
States, where a dog can only walk abroad on a chain with his
jaw bandaged and a man is not permitted to raise a cup to
his lips unless It contain lemonade or water, or to set pen to
paper unless he scratches hieroglyphics that can be read with-
out a blush by nasty-minded old gentlemen on the lookout for
obscenity.

169

Chapter Seven: T’he Cat in the Theatre

Actors, playwrights, singers in opera, managers of theatres,
and stage-hands have as many superstitions as Italian peas-
ants. I have known of a tenor who, because of the presence
of a rival tenor in a stage box, would not go before the foot-
lights in his great role of Tannhauser until he had performed
a ludicrous and scatologic rite. An admirer once sent a hand-
some and expensive peacock-feather fan to Madame Mod-
jeska. Now birds in general and peacock-feathers in par-
ticular are considered more portentous omens in the theatre
than the simultaneous breaking of a mirror, sitting at table
with thirteen, and facing the evil eye in any other plane of
worldly existence. The gift arrived just prior to a perform-
ance of Macbeth and the Polish actress refused to allow the
curtain to ascend until the noble count, her husband, had with
his own hands consigned the offending object to the flames of
the theatre furnace. These are bad luck signs. Curiously, and
perversely enough, the cat, who elsewhere often signifies the
most dread disaster, is a harbinger of prosperity in the theatre.
A black cat is preferred; indeed, the mere presence of a black
cat is sufficient to insure the success of any playhouse or
any play. However a cat of another colour will do. This
superstition is so wide-spread that every theatre from the
Comedie Francaise to the People’s Theatre on the New York
Bowery entertains a cat, feeding her lavishly, and treating her
with a respect and consideration which she seldom receives
elsewhere save in the homes of cat-lovers. I myself have
known a stage carpenter in the Apollo Theatre at Atlantic
City to go to the butcher and spend his own money for fresh

170

The Cat in the Theatre

liver with which he returned to feed the cat before he went
off to his own dinner. The Cecile Sorels, the Maggie Clines,
the Kay Laurels, who pass the portals of the stage-door, re-
gard themselves as fortunate If the cat so much as looks at
them when they come in. If the pampered feline goes so
far as to condescend a caress, rubbing herself against an actor’s
leg, that actor may be practically certain that David Belasco
will send for him in the morning to sign a life-contract. Thus
a kitten which playfully attached Itself to the trailing skirt of
Florence Reed’s dress during a rehearsal of Seven Days is
said to have been responsible for the subsequent success of
that happy farce and the call-boy himself could have told you
that Florence Reed would later become a star. After
J. H. Mapleson had secured the lease of Her Majesty’s
Theatre in London, he passed through the door of the Opera
with but £2 in his pocket, his sole balance, but, he tells us In
his “ Memoirs,” he was assured that there was no occasion
for despair when the “ celebrated black cat of the theatre ”
rubbed herself in the most friendly way against his knees.
It was the custom of Augustin Daly, after his work was done,
to wait near the gallery entrance of his theatre on Thirtieth
Street for a Broadway car. One night in a snow-storm a
poor kitten begged his attention with a wavering mew. He
picked her up and carried her back to the theatre, where she
grew into cathood. At the first New York performance of
Henry Irving In Faust the theatre cat wandered out on the
open stage during the first scene; undisturbed by the thunder
and lightning, from the vantage point of a canvas rock, she
regarded the action with dignity and decorum. Irving after-
wards remarked that he had regarded the incident as a lucky
omen.

Naturally the presence of cats in theatres Is frequently re-
sponsible for accidents. Puss, who Is at home where she Is
at home, has a habit of strolling abstractedly across the stage
at embarrassing moments. Sometimes she will sit through

171

The Tiger in the House

a scene, staring critically at the actors, to the vast diversion
of the customers, for the presence of a cat on the stage, de-
spite the contradictory evidence of the Irving episode, will
usually excite mirth in an audience, no matter what may be
the predominant mood of the play. It has therefore become
a general custom to appoint a deputy whose duty It is to lock
puss up before the play begins. But this is not always practi-
cable; sometimes, too, the squire may forget to carry out his
instructions. There are certain theatre cats who make it a
matter of honour never to cross the stage In front of the
back drop when the curtain Is up and who even teach their
kittens, with sundry cuffs and explanatory mews, to observe
this rule. Nevertheless unexpected and unwelcome appear-
ances of cats on the scene are not infrequent. Charles Sant-
ley, in “ Student and Singer,” tells how a cat almost caused
the failure of The Flying Dutchman at its first performance
In London. Santley, as Vanderdecken, had just finished his
opening scene and had leaned back against a rock while he
waited for Daland to make his entrance, when he heard some
one behind him hiss, “ Ts! Ts! ” Looking out of the corner
of his eye he made out that a cat was stealthily crossing the
stage. Instead of letting her go on one of the men In the
boat was foolishly attempting to send her back, not a very
easy thing to get a cat to do under any circumstances. Being
very tame and knowing all the people In the theatre she stopped
to see who was calling her. ” I was In dread,” writes Santley,
“ for I knew that if the public saw her she would attract all
their attention and the rest of the act would go for nothing.
To my great joy the cat did not recognize the boatman, so
went quietly off.” Rossini told Madame MarchesI that the
climax of the terrible fiasco of The Barber of Seville at the
initial performance was the unexpected appearance of a cat
on the stage which turned the already booing and hissing audi-
ence Into a howling mob of mirth and necessitated the ring-
ing down of the curtain. This incident reminds me that rude

172

The Cat in the Theatre

spectators sometimes express their displeasure by means of
cat-calls. In the eighteenth century the cat-call was a small
circular whistle, composed of two plates of tin with a hole
in the centre, but more lately the small boy has learned to
produce the hideous screech by placing two fingers in his
mouth and whistling. The boy who has lost two front teeth’
is said to be better prepared by nature for making this noise.
There have been occasions on which dead cats have been
hurled at actors. Huckleberry Finn informs us that sixty-
four dead cats were carried to the third performance of
The Royal Nonesuch which, it will be remembered, was never
given.

But now and again puss has unexpectedly been a factor in
the success of a play. Just before the curtain fell on the
first act of a comedy at Wallack’s Theatre in New York the
theatre cat walked slowly across the stage, set as a drawing-
room, seated himself before the fireplace, and proceeded to
wash himself. This realistic touch was very delightful and
if David Belasco was in front he doubtless writhed in agonized
envy that he had not introduced it into some play of his own.
When the leading man and the leading woman appeared be-
fore the curtain there were calls for the cat, and the biggest
round of applause greeted Tom when he came out in the
actress’s arms. The producer decided on the spot that the
cat should become a permanent actor, but when he was called
to rehearsal the next morning the results were not very satis-
factory, He refused, indeed, to be made a party to any
such nonsense. It was the property-boy who hit on the solu-
tion: “ No cat ain’t damn fool enough to let itself be trained
to do extra work. Lookin’ after rats and mice is Peter’s
job and we got to make him do the stunt along that line.”
Accordingly the boy held a live mouse by a cord tantalizingly
near a hole in the fireplace and puss waited breathlessly each
night until the end of the act when the mouse was released.
On one occasion the mouse made an earlier escape and the

173

The Tiger in the House

curtain came down with the leading woman screaming from
a chair. The account of a similar incident I owe to Chan-
ning Pollock: “ On the first night of The Little Gray Lady in

New York I sat in the gallery and watched my play slowly fail.
Not a single laugh during the whole first act! I have never
seen a piece go so badly; It was flat, dead, and I prepared for
the funeral. The scene of the second act was a backyard,
with a fence, an alley, and an ashcan. At a certain point in
the action, chosen It would seem with meticulous precision,
the theatre cat bounded over the top of the fence, jumped
down Into the ashcan and, finding it empty, jumped out again
and walked down the alley off the stage. The house howled
and roared with laughter and broke into applause; the audi-
ence, indeed, had now been warmed Into an appreciative mood
and thereafter followed the progress of the play with en-
thusiasm. In the following performances, by the clever ruse
of laying a trail of chopped meat along the proper route and
releasing the cat at the proper moment, we were enabled to
repeat this happy accident.”

This kind of acting a cat Is not unwilling to perform, but
he has been called upon to do much more on the stage. Now
at home he Is a natural actor. The play of the kitten, the
diversions of the grownup puss are invariably partly directed
to a human audience. Indeed a feline who lives on amicable
terms with men and women sleeps most of the time his friends
are away. Canon Liddon’s famous cat loved to distract his
distinguished prelate friend. He would jump upon a bust of
Dr. Busby which stood on a bracket near the door, and
balancing himself “ for one instant upon that severe and rev-
erent brow, would take a flying leap to the mantelpiece and
returning, would land with exquisite and unvarying accuracy
on the bust, repeating this performance as often as his master
desired. Liddon’s great amusement was to stand with his
back to the bracket, and fling a biscuit at Dr. Busby’s head,
the cat catching it dexterously, and without losing his pre-

174

THE CAT AND THE BALL OF THREAD

From a drazoing by Stcinlen in Des Chats

•M.

-*PI

The Cat in the Theatre

carious foothold.” ^ Wordsworth, in his description of a
kitten at play, quite mistakes the nature of the artful little
ball of fur when he asks:

What would little Tabby care
For the plaudits of the crotudf

For what else would she care, indeed? But, away from
home, or constrained, the cat has a natural timidity, a natural
dignity, and a feeling which amounts to an absolute avers’on
for the perfoiTnance of silly antics which other animals, such
as seals and dogs, seem to enjoy, and which elephants can be
taught to execute with facility if not with desire. The show-
man’s task becomes a heavier one because of the feline char-
acter. Animals who appear in the theatre or the circus are
usually trained by being beaten or threatened with red-hot
irons. In other words it is through their sense of fear that
their co-operation is gained. But such tactics will be of no
assistance to any one who wishes to train cats. A terrified cat
will shrink and tremble but he will not jump through hoops.
A cat who has been beaten will not creep up to lick the
mountebank’s hand.

Nevertheless a man who has won a cat’s confidence can,
with patience and interminable perseverance, accomplish a
good deal in this direction. The easiest method is to prolong
or exaggerate natural characteristics. If a cat has a natural
habit of sitting on h’s haunches and waving his paws in the
air, it is a comparatively easy matter to teach him to do this
upon demand. Feathers will lie for whole minutes perfectly
still on her back in the palms of my hands with one paw, per-
haps, pasted to my nose, but she will often refuse to be held
in any ordinary way. It is very simple, of course, to teach a
cat to live at peace with animals which usually form his prey
and a collection of this kind in a cage impresses a simple public.
Harrison Weir describes one such family whTh a showman

1 Agnes Repplier: “The Fireside Sphinx.”

175

The Tiger in the House

exhibited in which starlings sat on puss’s head and blackbirds
on his back while rabbits, white mice, rats and other such
beasties thrived in the cage. The animals seemed contented
and happy. At another London street corner Mr. Weir met
a man who had trained cats and birds: “ The man takes a

canary, opens the cat’s mouth, puts it in, takes it out, makes the
cat, or cats, go up a short ladder and down another; then
they are told to fight, and placed in front of each other; but
fight they will not with their forepaws, so the master moves
their paws for them, each looking away from the other.”
Mr. Weir witnessed other performances at the Royal Aquar-
ium, Westminster: “On each side of the stage there were

cat kennels, from which the cats made their appearance on a
given signal, ran across, on or over whatever was placed
between, and disappeared quickly Into the opposite kennels.
But about It all there was a decided air of timidity, and an
eagerness to get the performance over. When the cats came
out they were caressed and encouraged, which seemed to have
a soothing effect, and I have a strong apprehension that they
received some dainty morsel when they reached their destina-
tion.” Other feats followed and the entertainment closed
with an exhibition of tightrope walking in which the cats
walked a rope on which white rats had been placed at inter-
vals, without Injuring the rodents. “ A repetition of this feat
was rendered a little more difficult by substituting for rats,
which sat pretty quietly in one place, several white mice and
small birds, which were more restless, and kept changing their
positions. The cats re-crossed the rope, and passed over all
these obstacles without even noticing the impediments In their
way, with one or two exceptions, when they stopped, and
cossetted one or more of the white rats, two of which rode
triumphantly on the back of a large black cat.” Miss Wins-
low " gives some account of Herr Techow’s performing felines,
who walk on their front feet, jump through hoops of fire,

2 “ Concerning Cats,” p. 232.

176

The Cat in the Theatre

and perform other unnatural acts to the great edification of
vaudeville audiences. Herr Techow told Miss Winslow that
high-strung, nervous cats have the best minds but that it is
difficult to keep them interested in their work. “ A vagrant
cat,” he continued, “ is the easiest to teach, the quickest to
learn. Just as a street gamin gets his wits sharpened by his
vagrant life, the stray, half-starved cat, forced to defend him-
self from foes and to snatch his living where he can, has his
perceptive faculties quickened and his brain-cells enlarged. I
cannot teach a kitten. I take them from a year to two or
three years old, and train them three years longer before it
is safe to put them on the stage with confidence in their per-
forming the tricks they may have mastered.”

Performing cats, however, are seldom to be seen in circuses
or vaudeville. They are most difficult to train, not because
they are stupid but because they are too intelligent to be in-
terested in such nonsense. A cat is never vulgar and this
sort of thing undoubtedly strikes a cat as vulgar. As the
cat will willingly die to preserve his independence he cannot,
even when he has seemingly made the compromise with the
showman, be depended upon to carry out instructions. Bear-
ing on this point Miss Repplier ^ tells a particularly signifi-
cant story of a cat she saw with a troupe of performing ani-
mals at the Folies-Bergere in Paris:

“ Her fellow actors, poodles, and monkeys, played their
parts with relish and a sense of fun. The cat, a thing apart,
condescended to leap twice through a hoop, and to balance
herself very prettily on a large rubber ball. She then retired
to the top of a ladder, made a deft and modest toilet, and
composed herself for slumber. Twice the trainer spoke to
her persuasively, but she paid no heed, and evinced no further
interest in him, nor in his entertainment. Her time for con-
descension was past.

“ The next day I commented on the cat’s behaviour to
* “ The Grocer’s Cat ” in “ Americans and Others.”

177

The Tiger in the House

some friends who had also been to the Folies-Bergere on dif-
ferent nights. ‘ But,’ said the first friend, ‘ the evening I
went, that cat did wonderful things; came down the ladder
on her ball, played the fiddle, and stood on her head.’

“ ‘ Really,’ said the second friend. ‘ Well the night 1
went she did nothing at all except cuff one of the monkeys
that annoyed her. She just sat on the ladder and watched
the performance. I presumed she was there by way of
decoration.’ ”

Cats have repeatedly been drawn into cinematograph
representations with success, however. I remember an elabo-
rate film which began with a cat killing a bird, not a very
difficult thing to get a cat to do, and I have seen lovely white
Persians, and delightfully amusing alley cats, frisk on and off
the screen in this picture and that. Adolf Bolm has told me
of an electrical drama entirely performed by a cat, a bear,
and a fish.

Occasionally a playwright has asked an actress to carry a
cat, as dogs are often carried, on the stage. Avery Hop-
wood wanted his Countess with a cat to meet his Sadie Love
with a dog. But an attempt or two at rehearsals decided
him that the project had best be abandoned. The theme of
Eugene Walter’s play. The Assassin, was inherited blood-lust,
and the audience learned that the girl-heroine was affected with
the taint when she killed her pet kitten at the end of the
second act. The murder was accomplished off stage and was
indicated by the screams of the girl, like the crucifixion in
Aphrodite, but in order to establish the idea of the kitten in
the minds of the audience it was considered necessary to
keep her on the stage during the whole act. The very
youngest of kittens was secured for the purpose but even so
it was no easy matter to hold her and Fania Marinoff, to

*It is perhaps easier for a cat to train a man than for a man to train a cat.
A cat who desires to live with human beings makes it his business to see that the
so-called superior race behaves in the proper manner towards him.

178

The Cat in the Theatre

whom the task fell, found it expedient to cut puss’s claws be-
fore many rehearsals had taken place. The kitten was
thoroughly jolly, good-natured, and happy on trains and in
hotels, even in the dressing-room, but once the curtain had
risen she was transformed into an animated fiend, whose one
idea was escape. She struggled and often yowled and hold-
ing the kitten became as firmly fixed in Miss Marinoft’s mind
as any of her lines. At the end of Lady Gregory’s play. The
Deliverer,^ the King’s Nurseling is thrown to the King’s cats:

A loud mewing and screaming is heard.

Dan s wife: What is that screeching?

Malachi’s wife: It is the King’s cats calling for their food.

Ard: Shove him over the steps to them.

Malachi: Will you throw him to the King’s cats?

Dan’s wife: A good thought. No one will recognize him.

They’ll have the face ate off him ere morning.

Ard’s wife: Throw him to the King’s cats!

They screech again. Their shadow is seen on the steps.
The King’s Nurseling is dragged into darkness. A louder
screech is heard.^

Another stage cat is that in Chester Bailey Fernald’s one-act
play. The Cat and the Cherub, which is not to be confused
with the story with the same title. One-Two is a delightful
character in the story, but in the play the cat becomes scarcely
more than a name.

There are occasions on which playwrights call upon actors
to impersonate cats; the most notable example of this sort
of drama is probably The Blue Bird. Maeterlinck, of course,
is exclusively a dog-lover and the Cat does not come off very

5 “ Irish Folk-History Plays,” Second Series.

® There is an historical precedent for this scene. A certain King of Persia,
having devastated Egypt and profaned the temples, committed the final outrage
in killing the sacred bull. Apis. The Egyptians were revenged; they hacked
his body to pieces, and fed the morsels to the sacred cats!

179

The Tiger in the House

well; nor is his portrait cleverly drawn. The Cat is repre-
sented as fawning on his human friends to gain his own ends,
but do cats ever fawn? None that I have known do. On the
other hand Hinze the Tom Cat in Ludwig Tieck’s Der Gestie-
felte Kater is one of the most delightful and sympathetic cats
to be found in all literature. This cat, almost white with a
few black spots, is the wisest and wittiest personage in the com-
edy, which purports to be a dramatic version of Puss in Boots.
The piece is a mad fantastic satire on the German people,
the German government, and even the play form itself.
In Thomas Middleton’s The Witch, Hecate’s cat plays a con-
siderable part in the incantation scenes. In his ballet. The
Sleeping Beauty, Tschaikovsky introduces a short dance be-
tween two cats in a scenic episode in which other heroes and
heroines of the Perrault tales appear. Here, to the accom-
paniment of spits and meows in the orchestra. Puss in Boots
has an entirely apocryphal encounter with the White Cat. The
mood of this divertissement is humorous and Adolf Bolm
has told me that it is one of the most delightful scenes in the
ballet when danced at Petrograd. When Anna Pavlowa
presented a version of this work at the New York Hippodrome
several seasons ago I think this pas de deux was omitted.
How many pantomimes have been constructed on the subject
of cats I cannot even begin to conjecture. J. R. Planche
wrote one, I know, on the theme of the White Cat, and Dick
Whittington and Puss in Boots must have been figured as
frequently in the London Christmas lists as any other folk or
fairy story heroes.”^

At the height of her rivalry with Taglioni, Fanny Elssler
danced in a ballet called La Chatte Metamorphosee en Femme,

’’ It is interesting to know that Bernard Shaw’s extravagant farce, Passion,
Poison, and Petrifaction, was suggested by a story told by the author to the
children of William Archer about a cat who by mistake lapped up a saucer of
plaster of Paris instead of milk, and thereupon became petrified and was used
to prop up a door!

i8o

The Cat in the Theatre

drawn by Coralli and Duveyrler from a vaudeville of the same
title by Scribe and Melesville; the music was composed by a
young winner of the prix de Rome, a forgotten Apollo named
Montfort. There was much preliminary booming of this
ballet; It was announced that, as the action passed In China,
the costumes would be copied from authentic Canton models
and the following paragraph went the round of the Paris
journals: “Until recently, It Is said, Mile. Fanny Elssler

had an unconquerable aversion for cats. Each of us has his
bete noire; well, the hete noire of Fanny Elssler was a cat,
even a white cat. The sight of a cat made her tremble, the
mewing of a cat made her dash away on the points of her toes.
But the love of art is like all love : it knows the way to triumph
over fear; it knows how to vanquish the most sincere re-
pugnances; and through devotion to her art, to give truth to her
Impersonation, Mile. Elssler has had the courage to buy a
little white cat, which is always with her. The perfidious
animal Is always by ber side; and her beautiful enemy, for-
getting her hate, asks inspiration of the feline, studies her
graceful poses, ^ her light movements, her undulating walk,
and even her defiant glare and Immobile stare; sometimes she
still trembles, if by chance her hand encounters the white
ermine-like fur; the woman remembers her infantile terrors,
and her vanquished repugnance reawakens for a moment; but
the artist recalls herself to her role, rids herself of her weak-
ness, draws the pretty cat towards her and bravely caresses it.
The repellent animal disappears from her eyes; she sees onlv

® Rouviere, the actor, writes Champfleury, was truly feline by nature, and was
haunted by a desire to represent his sensations by the brush. He fell in with
Carlin, the harlequin of the Italian stage, who lived surrounded by cats, whose
“ pupil ” he declared himself to be. A picture by Rouviere explains certain
movements of that actor, who was remarkable for his quick, strange, and caress-
ing gestures in Hamlet. . . . Thus might be explained certain exceptional facul-
ties of Rouviere’s, which, even after his death, might serve an instructive pur-
pose. Those faculties were drawn from the living sources of nature, for it may
be said that the contemplation of a cat is as valuable to an actor as a course at
the Conservatoire.

i8i

The Tiger in the House

her model; she dreams of the success she will owe to it; she
hears the public applaud her and she realizes that her effort
will be rewarded.”

The ballet was not a great success. The vaudeville of
Scribe had been stupidly adapted and the music was uninterest-
ing. But Fanny’s performance was considered extraordinary.
She played the role of a young Chinese Princess, in love with
a student, who in turn adored his cat,

L'eclat d’une langue vermeille
Sur deux levres en velours noir.

The young man was made to believe that by means of a magic
cap he could change his beloved puss into a woman. He con-
sented to the metamorphosis and the Princess took the place
of the animal. She adopted the habits of cats,^'’ exaggerated
their faults in order to make the young man an ailurophobe.
She lapped milk from a bowl, made war on birds, played him
a thousand tricks until the student was ready to take the
Princess and let the cat go. All this, we learn, was carried
through with astonishing effect by Fanny Elssler, who had
really studied the manner of cats, captured their subtle walk,
copied their gestures, their soft paw-blows, their fashion of

9 This priceless example of 1837 puffery, so like the efforts of many present
day press agents, I take from Auguste Ehrhard’s charming book, “ Fanny
Elssler.”

19 In the “Century Magazine” for April 1891, Allan McLane Hamilton pub-
lished a story called “ Herr von Striempfell’s Experiment,” in which a scientist
transplanted the brain of a cat into that of a beautiful, sensible, and dignified
woman who, after her convalescence underwent a remarkable change, acquiring
feline characteristics of a familiar kind. At a formal dinner one evening she
dived from her chair into the corner and caught a mouse between her teeth!
Finally she died slowly and with the greatest difficulty, bearing out the nine
lives superstition. In his “Recollections of an Alienist” (1916), Dr. Hamilton
remarks (p. 232) : “Many years ago I wrote ... a short tale . . . which by

some people was taken in dead earnest. . . . Strange to say this led to serious
experimentation and I have heard of occasions when the brain grafting was
actually tried with apparent success, but let us hope with no transfer of objec-
tionable peculiarities.”

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The Cat in the Theatre

stretching themselves. “ The suppleness,” said a writer in
the “ Courrier des Theatres,” ” the elegant softness, the
velvet agility, the spiritual vivacity, the comic expression,
full of taste and charm, employed by Mile. Fanny captivated
the spectators until they believed that they had witnessed a
play, whereas they had only seen a ravishing actress.”

I have already spoken of Mademoiselle Deshoulieres’s
tragedy to be enacted by her mother’s cat and her lovers.
Moncrif has inserted in his book a quaint engraving of a
fantastic performance of this piece. Mirny, Grisette, Mar-
muse, and Cafar in costumes of the Louis XIV epoch stalk
the rooftops on their hind legs, while common cats, clothed
only in fur, sedately watch the performance from various
points of vantage. Cupid with his bow presides over this
charming scene.

This perhaps was the last play written entirely for cats
until Colette Willy’s Sept Dialogues de Betes appeared in
the early twentieth century, over two hundred years later.
And, of course, Madame Willy’s work is not devoted entirely
to cats! No one has written about animals with more
sympathetic understanding than Colette. Pierre Loti is a
careful and sensitive observer but he writes about cats objec-
tively. Colette treats them subjectively, tries to put herself
under their skins, makes them, indeed, speak for themselves.
This method, of course, has obvious difficulties, the main one

In Ward McAllister’s “ Society As I Have Found It,” in the description of
the ball given in honour of Lady Mandeville’s visit to New York, the author
writes (p. 354) : “The most remarkable costume, and one spoken of to this day,
was that of a cat; the dress being of cats’ tails, and white cats’ heads and a
bell with ‘ Puss ’ on it in large letters.”

12 H. C. Bunner wrote a child’s operetta called “Three Little Kittens of the
Land of Pie,” but although it is founded on the familiar nursery rhyme of the
“three little kittens who lost their mittens,” and although all the characters are
cats. King Thomas the First, Head of the House of Grimalkin, Ringtail, Kitcat,
Prince Tortoiseshell of Caterwaulia, Prince Spot of Bacquephensia, Prince Vel-
vet of Miaouwa, Princesses Kitty, Malta, and Angora, there is not a line of the
dialogue or the lyrics which suggests cat psychologj' or is even intended to.

The Tiger in the House

being the avoidance of sentimentality, but any one who reads
this book, and both lovers of cats and dogs will enjoy It, will
see how well she has succeeded. These dialogues, in the form
of a series of short one-act plays, between a cat, Klkl-la-Dou-
cette, and a dog, Toby-Chien, although dated 1905, in psycho-
logical content are similar to certain phases of the modern
Russian drama. Often, instead of conversing, each animal
proceeds to relate his own thoughts, to think aloud. These
thoughts are natural, but significant, and, of course, amusing.
The book was written. Indeed, " pour amuser Willy ” Oc-
casionally He and She, the human companions of the animals,
appear but as subordinate figures and they are always seen
from the point of view of the cat and the dog. The result
Is something very fine, something very near finished art.

In the opening dialogue KIki explains her position quite
neatly: “Neither the Two-footed Ones, nor you, compre-

hend the egoism of cats. . . . They christen thus, higglety-
pigglety, the instinct of self-preservation, the chaste reserve,
the dignity, the fatiguing self-denial, which comes to us from
the impossibility of being understood by them. Dog of little
distinction, but devoid of favouritism, do you understand me
better? The cat is a guest and not a plaything. Truly I do
not know In what times we live ! The Two-footed Ones, He
and She, have they alone the right to be sad, to be gay, to lick
the plates, to complain, to be capricious? I too have my ca-
prices, my griefs, my irregular appetites, my hours of dreamy
retreat In which I withdraw from the world. . . There,
indeed. Is the whole psychology of the cat in a single speech. A
little later, when the dog asks her if she has not a secret under-
standing with Him, she reveals a little more of her soul:
“ An understanding . . . yes. Secret and chaste and pro-
found. He rarely speaks, and scratches the paper with a
sound like the scratching of mice. It is to Him that I have
given my avaricious heart, my precious Cat heart. And He,
without words, has given me His. The exchange has made

184

LA MORT DE COCHON, TRAGEDIE
From an engraving in Moncrif’s Les Chats

The Cat in the Theatre

me happy and reserved, and sometimes with that capricious
and dominating instinct which makes us the rivals of women,
I try my power on Him. For Him, when we are alone, the
diabolical pointed ears which presage a bound on the paper
which he scratches! For Him the tap-tap-tap of the tam-
bourining paws through the pens and scattered letters. For
Him, also, the persistent mewing which demands liberty,

‘ The Hymn to the Doorknob,’ he smilingly observes, or
‘ The Plaint of the Sequestered.’ But for Him also the
tender contemplation of my inspiring eyes, which weigh on his
bent head until he looks at me and there results a shock of
souls so foreseen and so soft that I close my lids in exquisite
shame. . . . She . . . moves too much, often bullies me,
fans me in the air, holding my paws two by two, insists on
caressing me, laughs at me, imitates my voice too well. . . .”

Toby-Chien complains that sometimes when they are play-
ing together the cat treats him like a stranger. “ Could not
this be called a bad disposition?” he asks. “No,” answers
the cat, “ a disposition only. A Cat’s disposition. It is in
such irritating moments that I feel, beyond doubt, the humiliat-
ing situation in which I and the rest of my race live. I can re-
call the time when hierophants in long tunics of linen spoke to
us on bended knees, and listened timidly to our sung speech.
Remember, Dog, that we have not changed. Perhaps there
are days when my racial consciousness is more dominant, when
everything justly offends me, a brusque gesture, a gross laugh,
the sound of a door closing, your odour, your inconceivable
audacity in touching me, in surrounding me with your circular
bounds. . . .” There is much more of this delicately felt
psychology; the effect of heat, cold, hunger, movement,
a storm . . . even death, on the cat is discussed, all of this
wrapped in a rather subtle French which does not lend itself
very gracefully to translation.

In the last dialogue of all, there is an amusing and sudden
descent to bedroom farce, a veritable Georges Feydeau comedv

185

The Tiger in the House

of ithyphallic manners, in which a visiting toy-dog is the pro-
tagonist. This little lady proves very attractive to Toby who
is about to complete an easy seduction when the miniature one
catching sight of the outraged Kiki sitting atop the piano and
regarding the scene with a very natural horror, yelps, “ A
tiger, a tiger, help!” and rushes shrieking from the room.
It may be remarked just here that the cat, although a pas-
sionate lover, is both modest and subtle. Dogs conduct their
amours with little regard for public decency but a cat makes
love at night in shady groves, sanctified by the natural odours
of the warm earth, or in the hidden recesses of gabled roofs.

There is no dialogue in the book more characteristic, more
delicious than the scene on the train. He and She are on their
way to the country. Toby is loose in the compartment; Kiki,
of course, has been carried in a basket. She is released at the
dinner hour so that she may enjoy her chicken bone. But
soon there is to be a change of cars; how is Kiki to be gotten
back into the basket? He and She discuss this question until
the cat, having completed an elaborate Roman after-dinner
toilet, arches her back, spreads her claws in front of her,
descends into the basket and sinks into mysterious slumber!
This incident is a perfect example of the charming perversity
of the cat.

i86

Chapter Eight: The Cat in Music

Vous qui ne sauez pas ce vaut la musique,

Venez-vous en ouir le concert manifique
Et les airs rauissants que iaprens aux Matous.

Puisque ma belle voix ren ces bestes docilles,

Je ne scaur ois manquer de vous instruire tous
Ni de vous esclairsir les nottes difftciles.

In “ The Question of our Speech,” Mr. Henry James, who
is usually precise and careful in his statements of fact, has
permitted himself to say, ” It is easier to overlook any ques-
tion of speech than to trouble about it, but then it is also
easier to snort or to neigh, to growl or to ‘ meow,’ than to
articulate and intonate.” I do not know how difficult it may
be to neigh or to growl or even to snort. I have never tried to
make any of these sounds, but I have no confidence in my
power to do so. About ” meowing,” however, I am not at
all unenlightened and I could assure Mr. James, were he yet
alive, that the vocalization of a cat is not so simple a matter
as apparently he takes it to be. Felic, indeed, may be re-
garded as a language. Why should felines have voices and
ears if they cannot speak? ^‘L’ existence des organes,’' writes
Voltaire " entraine tout natureUement celle de leurs fonctions.
. . . L’idee que les animaux ont tous les organes du sentiment
pour ne point sentir est une contradiction ridicule.” Pierquin
de Gembloux expresses the theory that originally men and
animals spoke a similar language. Men have expanded their
mode of speech, while the animals retain their original tongues.
“ Between some sounds peculiar to certain animals and other
sounds peculiar to the idioms of certain nations — dead or

The Tiger in the House

alive — there is very often evident a greater analogy, a more
profound resemblance, a more indisputable affinity, than one
really finds, three quarters of the time, between certain French
words, for example, and their Latin progenitors.” ^ Dupont
de Nemours, a student of animals and their peculiarities, de-
clared that while the dog used only vowel sounds, the cat in
her language made use of at least six consonants, M, N, G, H,
V, and F. It seems obvious to me that P, R, S, and T may
be added as necessary purring and spitting consonants; the
H is produced, of course, by the rapid expulsion of the breath
following this very Magyar explosion of expletives, the cat’s
method of cursing.- I have never heard a cat use a V and
I would like more information on this point. “ Animals,”
writes the ingenious de Nemours, “ have very few needs and
desires. These needs are imperious and these desires strong.
Their expression is therefore marked, but the ideas are not
numerous and the dictionary short; the grammar more than
simple, very few nouns, nearly twice as many adjectives, the
verb nearly always taken for granted; some interjections which,
as M. de Tracy has very well proved, are entire phrases in a
single word: no other parts of discourse.” Cats do not abuse
the use of words as men do. They only use them for great
moments, to express love, hunger, pain, pleasure, danger, etc.
Naturally then their language is extremely poignant.

Whatever else it may be, and whether you like it or not, the
cat language is musical; in her conversation, casual or pas-
sionate, pussy produces tone. As Firestone has it in Middle-
ton’s play. The JVitch,

The cat sings a brave treble in her own language.

1 “ Idiomologie des Animaux, ou locherches historiques, anatomiques, physi-
ologiques, philologiques, et glossologiques sur le langage des betes;” Paris;
1844.

2 If anything else were needed to prove the superiority of cats, this would be
the final touch. The cat is the only animal save man, that knows how to
swear, and in this department only a lumber-jack or a successful opera-singer
can equal him.

188

The Cat in Music

Moncrif found her voice “ belle et grande,” but the ailuro-
phobic Ronsard wrote,

Le chat cria un miauleux effroy.

Whatever else may be said of the cat’s voice, no one can
accuse this musician of plagiarism; her music is her own.
Champfleury counted sixty-three notes in the mewing of cats,
although he admitted that it took an accurate ear and a great
deal of practice to distinguish them. On the other hand we
have the testimony of the Abbe Galiani who could only discern
twenty notes in the most elaborate mewing, but he found that
these constituted a complete vocabulary, as no cat ever uses
the same phrase except to express the same sentiment. Any
one who has lived on friendly terms with a cat must be aware
of the justness of this opinion; as Pierquin de Gembloux puts
it, “ Cliaque passion a sa note speciale.” Recall the trill-like
purr ending in its chromatic upward run which accompanies
amatory emotion in the female, the shrill cry of fright or anger,
the wail of hunger, the polite but peremptory request to be
let in or out, Willy’s “ Hymn to the Doorknob,” the demand
for water, which no adequate auditor will confuse with the
demand for food, and the quiet purr of contentment, which,
of course, is quite different from the kettle-drum purr of vio-
lent pleasure.^ Any one who has lived on amicable terms
with a cat will have no difficulty in understanding so much of
her language; an interested observer may pick up much more.

3 Charles Darwin in his “Expression of Emotions” writes: “Cats use their

voices much as a means of expression, and they utter under various emotions
and desires, at least six or seven different sounds. The purr of satisfaction
which is made during both inspiration and expiration, is one of the most
curious. The puma, cheetah, and ocelot likewise purr; but the tiger, when
pleased, ‘ emits a peculiar short snuffle, accompanied by the closure of the
eyelids.’ It is said that the lion, jaguar, and leopard do not purr.” Madame
Michelet invented several words for different kinds of purring, in French
called “ ronron ” : monrrons, monrons, mou-ous, mrrr: “ Les Chats,” P. 25.

She also invented a verb to express spitting (op. cit., P. XXVII).

Moncrif (“Les Chats,” P. 55) quotes an extraordinary dialogue by M.

189

The Tiger in the House

For instance, my Feathers gives vent to what I call her “ hunt-
ing cry ” just before a leap at the window pane after a fly.
This sound is sib to the faint creaking of a rusty hinge. The
Abbe GalianI distinguished betw'een the male and female
voices, the tenor and soprano cats, and he also discovered that
two sequestered pussies attended to their love-making in si-
lence, which naturally led to the deduction that the long notes
and growls of the alley fences and rooftops were calls to the
foe, jealousies, bickerings, alarums and excursions, rather than
amorous cries. What Pennant calls “ a piteous, squalling,
jarring lover ” then is the jealous male about to dispose of a
rival.

Others say that the gelded cat has a special cry of his
own which gives him a place alongside the male sopranos of
the eighteenth century. A cat, of course, cannot afford to
make many concessions to man, but she finds It possible and
convenient to understand the meaning of a few human words

Hauterot, which should be read aloud to make its complete effect. The scene
is near the fireplace in the kitchen.

La Chatte, voyant iourner la hroche, et se debarbouillant:

C’a est bon.

Le Matou, appercevant la Chatte, et s’approchant avec un air timide:

Ne fait-on rien ceans?

La Chatte, ne lu'i jettant qti’un demi regard:

Ohn.

Le Matou, d’un ton passionne:

Ne fait-on rien ceans?

La Chatte, d’un ton de pudeur:

Oh que nenni.

Le Matou, pique:

Je m’en revas done.

La Chatte, se radoucissant:

Nenni.

Le Matou, affectant de s’eloigner:

Je m’en revas done.

La Chatte, d’un air honteux:

Montez la-haut, plus haut, Montez la-haut.

Ensemble, courant sur I’escalier:

Montons la-haut. Montons 1^-haut!

190

The Cat in Music

like “ dinner and “ meat.” I can throw these words into the
middle of a sentence in conversation in any tone of voice and
Feathers will come bounding to the ice-chest where she knows
her meat is kept. “ If you say ‘ Hallelujah ’ to a cat, it will
excite no fixed set of fibres in connection with any other set and
the cat will exhibit none of the phenomena of consciousness,”
writes Samuel Butler. “ But if you say ‘ M-e-e-at,’ the cat
will be there in a moment, for the due connection between the
sets of fibres has been established.”

The cat seldom suffers from aphonia but well-bred cats
make but few sounds. Occasionally to signify their inten-
tions they open their mmuths but do not speak. Faute de
mew, they resort to gestures, a matter which I have discussed
in a previous chapter.

A thousand years or so before Christ the Egyptians associ-
ated the cat with music, utilizing the graceful head and figure
of the beloved animal in the decoration of the sistra. The
sistrum consisted of a frame of bronze or brass, into which
three or four metal bars were loosely inserted, so as to pro-
duce a jingling noise when the instrument was shaken. Oc-
casionally a few metal rings were strung on the bars to in-
crease the sound and very often the top of the frame was
ornamented with the figure of a cat. The instrument was
used by women in performances of religious ceremonies and
its Egyptian name, Carl EngeH tells us, was seshesh. Mon-
crif offers readers of ” Les Chats ” several curious engrav-
ings of these sistra on which cats are carved in various charm-
ing attitudes. There is another engraving in this book of
a statue of the cat god holding the sistrum in such a manner
that he indicates that he knows how to use it. “ Why does
this not prove a connection between instruments of music
and cats?” asks Moncrif. “The organization of cats is
musical; they are capable of giving many modulations to their

* “ The Music of the Most Ancient Nations”: William Reeves; London.
The instrument is used by the ballet in the first act of Aida.

I9I

The Tiger in the House

voices and in the different passions which occupy them they
use diverse tones.”

They no instrument use ever.

Each is his own flute and viol;

All their noses trumpets are
Bellies, drums, and no denial.

They in chorus raise their voices.

In one general intermezzo.

Playing fugues, as if by Bach,

Or by Guido of Arezzo.

Wild the symphonies they’re singing,
hike capriccios of Beethoven

Or by Berlioz, who’s excelled
By their strains so interwoven.^

The discovery of a fresco depicting a cat sitting calmly be-
fore a sistrum and a goblet led Moncrif into further disserta-
tion which is worthy of reproduction if for nothing else than
the stupendously enlightened theory of musical criticism which
it introduces. This theory, exploited as it was in a “ grave-
ment frivole” book on cats, published in 1727, was probably
not taken very seriously by Moncrif’s contemporaries; there
is no reason to believe, indeed, that it was taken very seriously
by Moncrif himself, but it was to pop up again two hundred
years later as one of the principal tenets of a certain school.
The combination of cat, sistrum, and goblet, Moncrif takes
as proof that cats were admitted to Egyptian banquets and
that they frequently sang there.

Her purrs and mews so evenly kept time.

She purred in metre and she mewed in rhymel^

® Heinrich Heine: “Mimi”; translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring.

® Joseph Green: “A Poet’s Lamentation for the Loss of his Cat.”

192

The Cat in Music

“ Doubtless,” writes the French savant, “ the enemies of
cats will insist that cats cannot sing, they can only caterwaul.
We will content ourselves by retorting that what seems to be
mewing in the cats of today proves nothing regarding the cats
of antiquity, arts being subject to great revolutions; we add,
with all possible discretion, that the dissonances of which
these enemies complain, only indicate a lack of knowledge and
taste on their part. . . . Modern music is limited to a cer-
tain division of sounds which we call tones and semitones and
we ourselves are limited enough to believe that this same
division is all that can be called music; therefore we have the
injustice to exclude bellowing, mewing, whinneying sounds of
which the intervals and relations, perhaps admirable of their
kind, are beyond our understanding, because they go beyond
the limits in w'hich we are restrained. The Egyptians, no
doubt, were more enlightened; they had really studied the
music of animals; they knew that a sound could neither be
true nor false, and that nearly always it appears to be either
one or the other only because we have the habit of judging an
assemblage of sounds immediately as harmony or dissonance;
they knew, for example, whether the cat used our scale or
whether she availed herself of the tones between the half
tones, which would make a prodigious difference between their
music and ours; they appreciated in a chorus of toms or in a
recitative, the simple or more perverted modulations, the light-
ness of the passages, the softness of the sounds or their pierc-
ing quality, from which, perhaps, they derived their pleasure.
That this music seems to us a confused sound, a charivari, is
only the effect of our ignorance, a lack of delicacy in our
organs, of justice and discernment. The music of the peoples
of Asia appears to us at least ridiculous. On their side they
find no common sense in ours. We believe reciprocally to

^ This phrase occurs almost word for word in Busoni’s “ A New Esthetic of
Music ” !

193

The Tiger in the House

hear only mewing; thus each nation, so to speak, is the cat
to the other I ” ®

Nearly a hundred years ago William Gardiner published a
curious book entitled “ The Music of Nature ” in which evi-
dently it was his intention to prove that the sounds of art are
derived from the sounds of nature. The work is provided
with many tables of examples which Mr. Gardiner has taken
down in barnyard and forest, and two examples of cat cries
are given. These, however, are not very convincing as they
are necessarily expressed in the tempered scale. Any one
who has listened to a cat practising vocalises will have no

® Hiddigeigei, the Tom Cat, speaks similar words in Scheffel’s “ Der Trompe-
ter von Sakkingen ” (translation of Jessie Beck and Louise Lorimer) ; William
Blackwood and Sons; Edinburgh; 1893; P. 99):

None the less, ’tis ours to suffer
That <when cat love finds expression
In the night, in sweetest numbers.

Men accord to us but scorning.

And they brand as ‘caterwauling’

All our choicest compositions.

Yet, alas! ’tis ours to suffer
That these same contemptuous mortals
Call such sounds into existence
As I have been forced to hear.

Sounds like these are, surely garlands
Bound of briars, straw, and thistles.

Where the stinging nettle fiaunteth.

And in view of yonder damsel.

Grasping yon abhorrent trumpet.

Can a man, with front unblushing,

Jeer when cats are making music?

Suffer, gallant heart within me.

Suffer! Times are surely coming
When the sapient human being
Will from us acquire the method
Of high feeling’s right expression.

When the rude world, struggling upward
Toward the climax of all culture.

Will appreciate ‘ caterwauling.’

History, in the main, is righteous.

All injustice is atoned for.

194

The Cat in Music

doubt that Moncrif is quite correct in assuming that the animal
makes use of smaller divisions than semitones.

So early as the sixteenth century we have a record of
the cat appearing in a musical capacity in Europe, strangely
enough, however, as part of an instrument and not as a vol-
untary vocal performer. When the King of Spain, Philip
II, visited the Emperor, his father, at Brussels in 1549, among
other festivities a singular procession was arranged in his
honour. At its head marched an enormous bull, balancing a
tiny devil between his horns, from which shot fireworks.
Other quaint conceits were a youth sewed in a bear’s skin
seated on a prancing horse, the ears and tail of which had
been cut, and the Archangel Saint Michael in gold and purple
robes, holding the scales in his hands. But the most curious
detail of this mad procession, and the one which awakened
laughter in the usually melancholy prince, was a chariot on
which a bear played the organ. In place of pipes twenty
small boxes each held a cat; the protruding tails were bound
to the keys of the clavier by cords so that it was only neces-
sary to press one of these keys to produce an “ infernal gal-
lemaufry o’ din.” The naive chronicler of this affair, Juan
Christoval Calvete, adds that the felines were arranged in
such a manner as to produce the succession of the notes of
the scale, but this would have been impossible as no cat was
ever limited to a monotone or by a semitone. The cat organ
seems to have been comparatively common in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, and even as late as the eighteenth, for
Weckerlin says that records have been found indicating the
existence of the instrument at Saint-Germain in 1753 and at
Prague in 1773. In “ Musiciana ” Weckerlin reproduces an
old engraving of a cat organ. A gay rogue with one leg
plays the instrument of torture while dogs, monkeys, asses,
and cows form a choir. Champfleury found an old picture of
the cat organ in Gaspard Schott’s “ Magia universalis ”
(1657) which he has reproduced in “ Les Chats.” And he

195

The Tiger in the House

describes Father Kircher’s still more barbarous variation in
which the touch of the keys drove pointed barbs into' the cats
at the bases of their tails. This almost reads like the ex-
periments Professor Mantegazza describes so merrily in his
“ Fisiologia del Dolore.”

In Champfleury’s book you will also find a copy of a quaint
eighteenth century woodcut of an animal tamer, carrying cats
on his head and shoulders while on the table before him five
cats play the viol, the bass, and the mandoline and still others
appear to be singing “ miaou,” written on the sheets of music
before them. At the top of this poster in large letters is
written :

Xa fiDusique Des (Tbata

and underneath, on a phylactery, ‘‘ Ceans Ion prend pension-
aires et le maistre va monstrer en ville.” Other seventeenth
century posters remain to prove that mountebanks gave con-
certs of cats at fairs. Valmont de Bomare ® describes a booth
at the Fair of Saint-Germain over which had been inscribed
the single word, '' Miaiilique.” In the interior some cats sat
on a table before a piece of music and at a signal given by a
monkey they negotiated feline melodies and harmonies. The
whole proceeding seems a perfect symbol for the chef
d’orchestre and the prime donne at the opera. In 1758 an
animal trainer named Bisset gave what he actually called a
“ Cats’ Opera ” in a hall near the Haymarket in London.

Other early engravings are more fantastic and less sig-
nificant of cruelty. A common one shows us a dozen cats,
Angoras, toms, blacks and whites, seated before a music desk
on which the Solfege of Italy in oblong form lies open. The
notes, however, are replaced by mice, their tails indicating the
crotchets and quavers. Teniers drew a similar scene but
added an owl as director and a monkey flute player. In An-

® “ Dictionnaire raisonne d’histoire naturelle”; Fourth Edition: 1800.

196

The Cat in Music

drew Lang’s version of “ The White Cat ” the Prince visits
a luxurious apartment “ upon the walls of which were painted
the histpries of Puss in Boots and a number of other famous
cats. The table was laid for supper . . . when suddenly in
came about a dozen cats, carrying guitars and rolls of music,
who took their places at one end of the room, and under the
direction of a cat who beat time with a roll of paper, began
to mew in every imaginable key, and to draw their claws
against the strings of the guitars, making the strangest kind
of music that could be heard. The Prince hastily stopped up
his ears; but even then the sight of these comical musicians
sent him into fits of laughter.” Even in nursery rhymes the
cat has standing as a virtuoso. One of the most familiar
speaks of “ the cat and the fiddle.” J. O. Halliwell “ gives;

A cat came fiddling out of a barn.

With a pair of bagpipes under her arm.

This musical feat would have been beyond the powers of
Mischa Elman or Efrem Zimbalist, but puss’s vocal achieve-
ments seem to have been meagre :

She could sing nothing but ‘'Fiddle cum fee^

The mouse has married the humble-bee.”

With SO many examples before them it does not seem un-
natural that composers should have begun to imitate the
sounds made by cats. Both in Germany and Italy, in the
seventeenth century, there was produced a monstrous lot of
burlesque imitative music: the cackling of hens all on one
note, ending on a fifth above, the mewing of rival toms in
nice chromatic order with a staccato, of course, by way of a
spit were favourite pastimes of the severest German con-
trapuntists. Even the solemn Marcello has left two elaborate
choruses, one for sopranos, the other for contraltos, who are

10 “ The Blue Fairy Book.”

“ The Nursery Rhymes of England”: 1844.

197

The Tiger in the House

asked to baa like sheep and mou like oxen. Frederick Niecks
gives us several examples in which the cat appeared. Adriano
Banchieri, in his carnival farce in madrigal form (1608), has
written a “ contrapunto bestiale alia mente” (an improvised
bestial counterpoint), where above the fundamental bass mel-
ody, a dog, a cuckoo, a cat, and an owl, barks (“babbau”),
calls (“cuccu”), mews (“gnao”), and cries (“chiu”).
. . . Adam Krieger (1667) composed a four-part vocal fugue
in which a characteristic chromatic subject is sung to “ miau,
miau.” An instrumental example also dates from this period,
the Capriccio stravagante (1627) by the Italian, Carlo Fa-
rina, court violinist at Dresden, with its imitations of the
cackling of hens, barking of dogs, mewing of cats, etc. Exam-
ples of this kind of thing are to be found in folk-music too.
Francesc Pujol’s arrangement of a Catalan folk-song. La Gata
i en Belitre, in which the male chorus imitates the mewing of
cats, was recently (1920) performed by the Schola Cantorum
in New York.

W. F. Apthorp says that when he was looking over the
score of a new symphony (name not given) at rehearsal with
Otto Dresel, the latter remarked, “Miaou! Miaou! we
shall have to get another niise en scene for the concert; we
ought to have a roof, with a ridgepole and some chimneys.”
So is poor pussy’s voice held in disrepute. Flowever there
are examples of cat program music even in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. There is, for instance, the spirited di-
alogue between Puss in Boots and the White Cat in the last
act of Tschaikovsky’s ballet. The Sleeping Beauty, in which the
dancers simulate a lively scene between two cats and the or-
chestra imitates the sounds made by the animals including, of
course, a realistic spit. G. Berthold’s Duet for Two Cats
seems to have enjoyed considerable popularity although I have
never heard it sung. The single word, “ miau ” is vocalized
by two singers to runs and scales which are sufficiently catlike

12 Programme music.

198

The Cat in Music

to be amusing. In 1917 Igor Stravinsky’s Berceuses du Chat
for a woman’s voice and three clarinets were published.
These are four short songs, on popular Russian texts, which
have been translated into French by C. F. Ramuz. The titles
are Sur le poele^ Interieur, Dodo, and Ce qu’il a, le chat.^^
They were evidently written by a lover of cats and they un-
doubtedly give one the feeling of cats but imitation in music
is no specialty of Stravinsky and, except in the first song, in
which one of the clarinets purrs, there is very little attempt
made to transfer what Agnes Repplier describes as “ the
curious and complicated vocalism of the cat ” into the range
of art music. They are strange, exotic, curious little sketches
and in hearing Eva Gauthier sing them I was reminded of a
passage in Algernon Blackwood’s “ Ancient Sorceries,” the
passage in which Vezin listens to the invisible out-door or-
chestra in the enchanted town which he visits unwittingly:
“ He recognized nothing that they played, and it sounded as
though they were simply improvising without a conductor.
No definitely marked time ran through the pieces, which ended
and began oddly after the fashion of wind through an Aeolian
harp. . . . There was a certain queer sense of bewitchment
in it all. The music seemed to him oddly unartificial. It
made him think of trees swept by the wind, of night breezes
singing among wires and chimney-stacks, or in the rigging of
invisible ships; or — and the simile leaped up in his thoughts
with a sudden sharpness of suggestion — a chorus of animals,
of wild creatures, somewhere in desolate places of the world,
crying and singing as animals will, to the moon. He could
fancy he heard the wailing, half-human cries of cats upon the
tiles at night, rising and falling with weird intervals of sound,
and this music, muffled by distance and the trees, made him
think of a queer company of these creatures on some roof far

Sung by Eva Gauthier at a concert at the Greenwich Village Theatre in
New York, December 15, 1919.

“ John Silence.”

199

The Tiger in the House

away in the sky, uttering their solemn music to one another
and the moon in chorus.

“ It was, he felt at the time, a singular image to occur to
him, yet it expressed his sensation pictorially better than any-
thing else. The instruments played such impossibly odd in-
tervals, and the crescendos and diminuendos were so very
suggestive of cat-land on the tiles at night, rising swiftly, drop-
ping without warning to deep notes again, and all in such
strange confusion of discords and accords. But, at the same
time a plaintive sweetness resulted on the whole, and the dis-
cords of these half-broken instruments were so singular that
they did not distress his musical soul like fiddles out of tune.”
One must not forget Mortimer Wilson’s Funeral of the
Calico Cat,^^ which, James Huneker avowed, “ was quite tiny
at the beginning of the music, but grew to monstrous propor-
tions before its interment.” There is also Edgar Stillman
Kelley’s Cheshire Cat from his Alice in Wonderland suite.
Among Moussorgsky’s Children’s Songs you will find The
Brigand Cat. Tom Dobson wrote a song called The Cat and
one of the popular airs of The Tenderfoot concerned a tom.
Another popular song of a couple of decades ago was The Cat
Came Back. The Me-ow one-step, with its superb matou on
the cover and its indications to the orchestra to sing the cat
cries at appropriate intervals also comes to mind. It will be
remembered that a rain of cats saved the day in Hans, the
Flute Player and that a cat-o’-nine-tails plays a considerable
part in ” that infernal nonsense. Pinafore.”

There have been musical cats. According to Louis Wain,
the black cat of Saint Clement Danes Church in London was
accustomed to climb up to the top of the organ pipes and enjoy
an occasional concert alone. Perhaps a similar love for music
caused the death of another puss who was found desiccated
and recumbent in one of the long organ pipes of Westminster
Abbey which had been out of tune for some time. John L.

15 Played by the Philharmonic Society in New York; November 1918.

200

The Cat in Music

Runciman writes: “Perhaps one reason musicians are

fond of cats is that cats are extremely fond of music. But
their taste generally requires a great deal of educating. I
have known them even to like such songs as Mr. Galloway
mentioned in the House recently — The horse what missus
dries the clothes on and The Boers got my daddy. It is best
to commence with a course of Bach’s ‘ Forty-eight ’ — but it is
necessary to close the top of the piano or you may find the
instrument clogged with bits of meat, dead mice, corks, etc.
The violin troubles them enormously — I believe they lose
their sleep on its account, for they are always firmly convinced
that it is the bow that sounds. The piano they can play by
walking over the notes; but though they can knock a bow on
the floor and shove it about nothing in the way of music comes
of it. Mr. Balling once played the viola-alta at my house and
the eyes of Felix Mendelssohn glistened with hope. The per-
formance over the bow was duly experimented with. Alas!
— no result; and Felix retired to a corner and sat there half
an hour wrapt in melancholy thought.’’ Heinrich Heine de-
scribes a similar performance on the part of his uncle’s An-
gora, who dragged an old flute over the garret floor. An in-
habitant of one of the western United States was a believer
in the cat’s love of music. He left all his property for the
establishment of a feline infirmary. And in his will he pro-
vided that an accordeon “ be played in the auditorium by
one of the regular nurses, to be selected for that purpose
exclusively, the playing to be kept up for ever and ever, with-
out cessation day and night, in order that the cats may have
the privilege of always hearing and enjoying that instrument
which is the nearest approach to the human voice.” Car-
men Sylva desired to make her kitten, Piiffchen, musical and
held him, therefore, in a little fur bag in her lap whenever

16 “ My French Cats”; “Saturday Review”; London; April 2, 1904.

Joseph Winthrop Moses: “Something about Cats”; “New Eclectic”;
Baltimore; November 1870.

201

The Tiger in the House

she played the piano, but Piiffchen was intransigent and strug-
gled to get awayd® Gautier’s silver-grey Angora, Zizi, was
a melomaniac. Gautier describes her as listening to music
with sleepy satisfaction and she would often go so far as to
pick her way up and down the keys of the open pianoforte.
Now my cat. Feathers, has a talent for piano playing. Some-
times she walks sedately from one end of the keyboard to the
other, producing an exotic succession of tones; at other times
she pounces on a group of keys, making sounds not unallled to
those which Leo Ornstein evokes in The Wild Men’s Dance.
On these occasions she will leap wildly from treble to bass,
tearing tone and melody to tatters, trying to paw the secret of
the hidden pussy screams from the rosewood box. She has a
particular penchant, after the manner of her race, for music
at night and it is no rarety to awaken at 2 A. M. to hear Feath-
ers attempting prodigious scales. There is at least one legend
of a cat who furnished a composer with a theme in this fashion.
One of Scarlatti’s compositions bears the title. The Cat’s
Fugue (at least in modern editions) and the story goes that a
stroll on the keyboard by Scarlatti’s cat gave the master the
subject to the fugue which is as follows:

4'J. IJ. |J. If f=

The composition has always been popular with pianists and
both Liszt, who often played it, and von Billow have arranged
editions of it. Biilow in his edition suggests that the
droll suggestion of the title shall not be lost sight of
during performance: “The first three measures present

the mechanical promenade of the cat across the key-
board (the theme proper) ; the following ones exhibit the
justificatory touch of the master-hand, thoughtfully arranging

Carmen Sylva: “My Kittens”; “Century Magazine”; August 1908.

202

The Cat in Music

the first chaotic ‘ product of Nature.’ The marks which I
have added for the shading — an almost rough forte for the
fore-phrase, and a sudden, tranquillizing piano for the after-
phrase — will provide, I think, the simplest means for dis-
playing this humorous contrast, a fairly consistent observance
of which is to be recommended throughout.” At the climax
of the piece Billow gives the following advice: ” In the suc-

ceeding twenty-two measures, up to the // (D minor) the cat
must, so to speak, swell to a tiger — something like the poodle
in Faust’s study; i. e., in plain prose, there should be a con-
tinuous dramatic intensification in the effect.”

Sacchini, too, was beholden to cats. He could only com-
pose, he assured his friends, when he was surrounded by them.
Their presence inspired his gracious and seductive music.
Weckerlin quotes the terms of the strange will of Made-
moiselle Dupuy, a celebrated harpist who lived and died during
the seventeenth century. She stipulated that no hunchbacks,
cripples, or blind persons should be permitted to attend her
funeral and she left her fortune to her cat. In Moncrif’s
” Les Chats ” there is a delightful engraving showing the cat
on the deathbed of his mistress while two attorneys are mak-
ing out her testament. Mademoiselle Dupuy believed that
she owed her skill as a musician to this cat, who sat beside her
while she performed, manifesting pleasure or annoyance, ac-
cordingly as she played well or ill. Consequently she left him
both a town and a country house with sufficient income to keep
them up properly. Her relatives, however, succeeded in
wresting this bequest away from the unfortunate feline, who
probably was not even allowed to be present in court.

Some of the most amusing passages of Rimsky-Korsakoff’s
autobiography are devoted to Borodin and his menage. The
following paragraphs are descriptive of Borodin’s cats:
” Many cats, that the Borodins lodged, marched back and

^^The Cat’s Fugue: edited and fingered by Hans von Biilow; G. Schirmer;
New York.

203

The Tiger in the House

forth on the table, thrusting their noses into the plates or
leaping on the backs of the guests. These felines enjoyed
the protection of Catherine Sergueievna. They all had bi-
ographies. One was called Fisher because he was successful
in catching fish through the holes in the frozen river. An-
other, known as Lelong, had the habit of bringing home
kittens in his teeth which were added to the household. More
than once, dining there, I have observed a cat walking along
the table. When he reached my plate I drove him away;
then Catherine Sergueievna would defend him and recount
his biography. Another installed himself on Borodin’s
shoulders and heated him mercilessly.

“ ‘ Look here, sir, this is too much I ’ cried Borodin, but
the cat never moved.”

We learn from Heine that Meyerbeer hated cats and Old
Fogy tells an apocryphal story of Brahms which is amusing
enough to repeat here : “ Brahms, so it is said, was an avowed

enemy of the feline tribe. Unlike Scarlatti, who was passion-
ately fond of chords of the diminished cats, the phlegmatic
Johannes spent much time at the window, particularly of
moonlit nights, practising counterpoint on the race of cats, the
kind that infest backyards of dear old Vienna. Dr. Antonin
Dvorak had made his beloved friend and master a present of
a peculiar bow and arrow, which is used in Bohemia to slay
sparrows. In and about Bohemia it is named in the native
tongue, ‘ Slug] hym inye nech.' With this formidable weapon
did the composer of orchestral cathedrals spend his leisure
moments. Little wonder that Wagner became an anti-vivi-
sectionist, for he, too, had been up in Brahms’s backyard, but
being near-sighted, usually missed his cat. Because of arduous
practice Brahms always contrived to bring down his prey, and
then — O diabolical device ! — after spearing the poor brutes,
he reeled them into his room after the manner of a trout

20 N. A. Rimsky-Korsakoff : “ Ma Vie Musicale”; Introduction et Adapta-

tion par E. Halperine-Kaminsky ; Pierre Lafitte; Paris; 1914; P. 73-

204

LE GARCON AU CHAT

From the painting by Pierre Auguste Renoir

The Cat in Music

fisher. Then — so Wagner averred — he eagerly listened
to the expiring groans of his victims and carefully jotted down
in his note-book their antemortem remarks. Wagner de-
clared that he worked up these piteous utterances into chamber
music, but then Wagner had never liked Brahms. ...”
Baudelaire once said, “ I love Wagner, but the music I prefer
is that of a cat hung by its tail outside of a window, trying to
stick to the panes of glass with its claws. There is an odd
grating on the glass which I find at the same time strange,
irritating, and singularly harmonious.” Of course this was
pure imaginative fiction on Baudelaire’s part, who was too
much attached to pussies to torture them.

Singers have usually been a little sensitive on the subject
of cats, for the resemblances between a certain kind of singing
and caterwauling are more than casual and in parody, bur-
lesque, and even in criticism the soprano often finds herself
side by side with the tom cat.

And loudest of all was heard a voice

Which sounded languid and shrieking
As Sontag’s voice became at last.

When utterly broken and squeaking.

A hundred years or so ago in London there lived a celebrated
music hall performer who was called ” Cat Harris ” because
he burlesqued the singers of the Italian Opera, imitating them
In tones of the feline race. In Cassell’s “ Old and New Lon-
don ” I found the following: “ When Foote first opened the

Haymarket Theatre, amongst other projects he proposed to
entertain the public with imitation of cat-music. For this
purpose he engaged a man famous for his skill in mimicking
the mewing of the cat. This person was called ‘ Cat Harris.’
As he did not attend the rehearsal of this odd concert, Foote
desired Shuter would endeavour to find him out and bring

21 Heinrich Heine; “The Young Cats’ Club for Poetry-Music”; transla-
tion by Edgar Alfred Bowring.

205

The Tiger in the House

him with him. Shuter was directed to some court in the
Minories, where this extraordinary musician lived; but, not
being able to find the house, Shuter began a cat solo; upon
this the other looked out of the window, and answered him
with a cantata of the same sort. ‘ Come along,’ said Shuter,
‘ I want no better information that you are the man. Foote
stays for us; we cannot begin the cat-opera without you.’”
W. T. Parke, forty years principal oboe player at Covent
Garden Theatre, in his “ Memoirs ” tells us why Madame
Catalan! was almost the only great singer of the period with
whom he was not acquainted. He had written a song for
Miss Feron, which she sang at Vauxhall Gardens, called The
Romp, or the Great Catalan}. The song contained an imita-
tion of Catalan! in one of her airs and was intended as a
compliment to the singer. However, in the recitative which
introduced the air, ending with the words, ” Great Catalan!,”
it became necessary, in order to make the music accord with
the poetry, to repeat a part of the name so that it read thus,
” Great Cat, Great Catalan! ! ” The result, we learn, roused
Madame Catalani’s ire.^^ But Jenny Lind as a child always
sang to her cat, of whom she was inordinately fond. “ Her
favourite seat,” her son is quoted as writing in Canon Scott
Holland’s book, “ was in the window of the steward’s room,
which looked out on the lively street leading up to the church
of St. Jacob. Here she sat and sang to the cat; and the people
passing in the street used to hear and wonder.” Whether
Sophie Arnould cared for cats or not I do not know, but in
a letter to Belanger, dated August 2, 1801, she complains
that she has not money left to keep one. We learn from
J. H. Mapleson’s ” Memoirs ” that lima de Murska travelled
with a small menagerie, including an Angora cat which her
monkey tried to kill on one occasion. Marie-Anne de
Camargo kept white Angora cats with her dogs in her old age.

22 Southey named a cat Madame Catalan!; others must have done so as
naturally as perfumers of today christen sweet odours after Mary Garden.

206

The Cat in Music

Marie Engle was fond of cats; so is Emmy Destinnova.
Most singers, however, seem to prefer dogs, whose voices
offer no basis for invidious comparison, and who do not object
to a life of travel.

There are, on the other hand, many instances recorded of
cats who nursed an antipathy towards music and musicians.
Pierquin de Gembloux, in his curious “ Traite de la Folie des
Animaux,” asserts that he has known of cases in which a cat
has been thrown into convulsions by the sound of singing.
Some cats seem to have a sound taste in such matters, the
aforementioned Mademoiselle Dupuy’s cat, for example;
Jenny Lind’s cat, too, probably gave his mistress signs of his
interest in proper tone production. Gautier’s Madame
Theophile, the same delightful puss who had the horrible
experience with a talking parrot, was a musical amateur of
taste and discretion. “ Sitting on a pile of scores she listened
attentively and with visible signs of pleasure to singers. But
piercing notes made her nervous and at the high A she never
failed to close the mouth of the singer with her soft paw.
This was an experiment which it amused many to make and
which never failed. It was impossible to deceive this cat
dilettante on the note in question. . . .” In a letter to Samuel
Butler, dated May 8, 1883, Miss Savage writes, “A lady at
the Gallery was telling me about her cat; he is a most intel-
ligent creature, and she recounted various instances of his
sagacity, winding up with, ‘ and when I begin to play the piano,
he always goes out of the room.’ ”... Eva Gauthier has told
me of an experience she once had in Paris when she was sing-
ing Der Erlkonig in a friend’s drawing-room. As she was
singing the cries of the child, suddenly and entirely without
warning, for she was unaware of the presence of any animal,
a tiny Siamese kitten, a tawny taut ball, bounded from the
next room and sprang at her throat into which he dug his
claws. ... In her charmingly personal book “ Les Chats,”
to which I have referred so many times already, Madame

207

The Tiger in the House

Jules Michelet gives several examples of cats who were
musical amateurs. The most interesting of these, perhaps, was
Minette, who listened to her mistress singing old folk-songs
of the province where she had lived as a child. “ If I sang
a simple air, spun out in a low voice, like a nurse’s humming,
she kept her place, raising her eyes dreamily to mine. But
if the air was melancholy, if there were tears in my voice, she
began to be agitated. Her obvious uneasiness, however, indi-
cated a certain kind of pleasure. If the tone raised and
mounted to that accent of acute grief which is precisely the
tone of a violin, Minette gave signs of sickly excitement. The
Serenade of Schubert, for example, imploring in its restrained
passion, slow at first, sombre as a song of night; this prayer
which, from the profound depths, rises to ardent supplication,
and takes as witness the bird, its sighs, the emotional silence
of Nature, — this supreme cry of a wounded heart succeeded
in creating the greatest excitement in Minette. Never, I be-
lieve, did a woman’s soul exhibit greater grief. She sat on
my knees, her eyes fastened only to my lips. If I continued,
she placed her two paws on my breast, relaxing herself in a
nervous swoon. Her voice recalled that shivering mew which
in the cat says so many things. Her eyes, in spite of the
bright light, were dilated, as they are in a state of apprehen-
sion or suffering. If I still continued to mount higher, with
a firm gesture, entirely human, she applied her two rigid paws
to my mouth and sealed my lips.” This little scene of
Minette’s may have been excusable. Madame Michelet her-
self admits that she was no musician; her singing of Schubert
Ueder may have been unendurably trying to a feline melo-
maniac.

Elsewhere in her book,^"* Madame Michelet educes the
interesting theory that while cats are often painfully affected
by sounds of nearby musical instruments, the faint tinkle of
music in the distance often gives them a pleasurable sensation,

“ Les Chats,” P. 30.

208

The Cat in Music

“ inspires them with an amiable madness.” Dining with some
friends one night opposite the Cafe Turc, in which a ball was
being given, she was astonished to see nine cats on the roof,
directly over the dance hall, nine cats, grey, brown, and black
in the soft light of the roof. These cats silently and gravely
moved across the sky in some esoteric relation to the music.
With arched backs, tails held high or lopped off, stiff legs,
stretched, steel ham-strings refalling to each measure, they
manifested a marvellous precision. Occasionally when the
band played a fast quadrille they leaped about quite insanely.

Another and fearsome link binds the cat to music, the
terrible catgut. Swift gives this example of weak wit in his
“ Art of Punning” : “ Why are rats and mice so much afraid

of bass-viols and fiddles? Because they are strung with
catgut.” And in his verse with the gruesome title, ‘‘ The
Music of the Future,” Oliver Herford comments on the
matter as follows :

The politest musician that ever was seen
JV as Montague Meyerbeer Mendelssohn Green.

So extremely polite he would take off his hat
Whenever he happened to meet with a cat.

“Ifs not that Tm partial to cats,” he'd explain;

” Their music to me is unspeakable pain.

There's nothing that causes my flesh so to crawl
As when they perform a G-flat caterwaul.

Yet I cannot help feeling — in spite of their din —

When I hear at a concert the first violin
Interpret some exquisite thing of my own
If it were not for catgut I'd never be known.

A nd so, when I bow as you see to a cat.

It isn't to her that I take off my hat;

But to fugues and sonatas that possibly hide
UncompQsed in her — well — in her tuneful inside! ''

2* “The Bashful Earthquake”; Charles Scribner’s Sons; New York;

209

1900.

The Tiger in the House

“ No sounds are so captivating as those made by the men of
sin who rub the hair of the horse to the bowels of the cat,”
writes Artemus Ward, and Addison In one of his Spectator es-
says remarks that the cat has contributed more to harmony
than any other animal, “ as we are not only beholden to her
for her wind music but for our string music in general.” The
truth is, however, that violin strings are not and never have
been, so far as Is known, fashioned of catgut; they are really
made of lambs’ intestines. Why they are called catgut is
another etymological mystery.

210

Chapter Nine: The Cat in Art

“ It is odd that, notwithstanding the extreme beauty of cats,
their elegance of motion, the variety and intensity of their
colour, they should be so little painted by considerable artists,”
writes Philip Gilbert Hamertond “ Almost all the pictures
of cats which I remember were done by inferior men, often by
artists of a very low grade indeed. The reason for this is
probably that although the cat is a refined and very voluptuous
animal, it is so wanting in the nobler " qualities as to fail in win-
ning the serious sympathies of noble and generous-hearted
men.” The reason for this is probably nothing of the sort.
To begin with it may be stated categorically that artists as a
class, and painters in particular, are seldom “ noble and
generous-hearted men.” Then, although so well-known an
animal painter as Rosa Bonheur seldom painted the cat, pre-
ferring to dally with his less subtle brother, the lion, and Sir
Edwin Landseer, after two youthful attempts,^ sought easier
subjects, nevertheless 1 can scarcely recall the name of a single
artist of note who has not at one time or other made an effort

“ Chapters on Animals,” P. 52.

2 “ 'To bestow such epithets as ‘ generous ’ and ‘ noble ’ on a dog for pulling
a drowning man out of the water, or scratching him out of a snow-drift, is
fully as irrational as it would be to call the swallow and cuckoo intrepid ex-
plorers of the dark continent, or to praise the hive-bees of the working caste
for their chastity, loyalty, and patriotism, and for their profound knowledge of
mathematics as shown in their works.” W. H. Hudson : “ The Great Dog-
Superstition ” : “The Book of a Naturalist”; George H. Doran Co.; New
York; 1919.

3 Landseer painted The Cat Disturbed in 1819 and The Cat’s Paiu in 1824.
In the former picture puss is persecuted and her nerves are upset by the
intrusion at meal-time of a pair of ill-bred terriers.

21 I

The Tiger in the House

to draw a cat, and almost all of them have failed. The
simple fact of the matter is that under any ordinary circum-
stances the animal is too difficult to paint. The artist, indeed,
who would succeed at feline portraiture, must first of all have
a certain understanding and sympathy for cats, and then he
must devote his lifetime to their study. Landseer decided he
could not give so much time to one form and so he set himself
more facile tasks.

The beauty of the cat is very deceptive, for under the
grace of the furry exterior lie concealed steel-like muscles.
Now the artist who indicates the grace and softness usually
misses the strength and the artist who seizes the strength
usually does so at the expense of other qualities. The cat’s
eye alone, an eye skilfully blending innocence and mystery,
an eye which changes with the hours of the day, offers in-
superable difficulties. “ Nothing is so difficult,” observes
Champfleury, ” as to paint the cat’s face, which as Moncrif
justly observes, bears a character of ‘ finesse and hilarity.’
The lines are so delicate, the eyes so strange, the movements
subject to such sudden impulses, that one should be feline one-
self to attempt to portray such a subject.” With every move-
ment, with every thought, the cat varies in expression, contour,
and markings. The cat’s character, too, must be taken into
consideration. No self-respecting cat has any leanings
towards a career as an artist’s model.

“ She is willing,” writes Arthur Tomson, from some ex-
perience, ” to be observed at times when the performance
under scrutiny is entirely of her own direction. But let a cat
imagine for one moment that she is under some sort of com-
pulsion, and very speedily she will let you know who is master.
If one wishes her to lap milk, and provides her with the means
of doing so, she will sit up and wash herself; if one wishes her
to wash herself she will chase her tail; if it is a sleeping atti-
tude that one is studying she will scamper off. No sort of
training, or affection, or love of good food will turn the cat

212

The Cat in Art

into a perfect assistant to any artist. Neither will any sort
of compulsion.” ^

But the greatest obstacle to painting the cat is the obstacle
that any portrait painter must be prepared to meet. The
technique of painting may be acquired; one may learn how to
paint bodies and faces, arms, legs, hands and ears, characteris-
tics, in short, but how few portrait painters can paint character;
how few can go beyond externals. It Is exactly this final
touch that felinophiles miss In pussy pictures. The painter
has painted a cat, perhaps, satisfactorily enough, but whose
cat? One of the most celebrated painters of cats, Henriette
Ronner, is a great offender in this respect. All of Madame
Ronner’s cats and kittens have a tendency to look precisely
alike; they have little or no character.

Contemporary artists were often inclined, naturally enough,
to paint Theophile Gautier surrounded by his feline harem.
He sometimes posed in Turkish costume, squatting on cushions
and overrun with cats. He admitted that there was little ex-
aggeration In these pictures and that the portraits of himself
were admirable, but it was hard to induce him to praise the cat
portraits. He missed the peculiar and characteristic features:
where was the curve of Zuleika’s snow-white breast, the deep
repose of Zulema’s folded paws, or the eloquent elevation of
Zobelde’s jet-black tail? ‘‘ Painting cats,” he used to say,
“ is a question of genius, my dear boys.”

Nevertheless one meets with the cat in nearly all forms of
art from the time of the early Egyptians down to the present
day. Curiously enough she Is not a conspicuous figure In
Roman or Greek art but perhaps her absence may be accounted
for on the same ground as that on which Mrs. Emily James
Putnam accounts for the disappearance of the Athenian lady.®

* For these and other reasons the cat is also very hard to photograph. The
best photographs are instantaneous, as the mere breathing of a cat will blur
the fur in a time exposure.

® “ Anything that is necessary tends to become an evil, and the wife’s dynas-

213

The Tiger in the House

At any rate there are comparatively few examples of art deal-
ing with cats In the Greek and Roman collections. The two
notable exceptions are a Grecian urn of the best period and a
bas-relief In the Capitollne Museum on which a young woman
Is represented who tries to teach her cat to dance while she
plays the lyre, the cat naturally preferring to snap at a duck.®
Even more curious Is the neglect of the cat In ecclesiastical
architecture. The demons sculptured In the mediaeval ca-
thedrals were often put there to plant terror In such matters
In the hearts of the people, but although cats and witches
were ever so chummy, demon cats do not raise their hideous
fangs In these churches. What few cats do appear In these
carvings seem pleasant enough In Intention.

In Tarragona Cathedral, Havelock Ellis notes the broadly
humorous sculptured scene In the cloisters “ where we see a
solemn procession of rats joyfully bearing on a bier a de-
murely supine cat, who, a little farther on. Is again seen vigor-
ously alive and seizing one of her unfortunate bearers while
the rest are put to flight — the most Insignificant sculpture
In the cathedral, but perhaps the most Interesting, the sacristan
observes smilingly.” ^ In the first scene tabby lies on a
litter borne by rats and mice and preceded by a train of
rodents bearing banners, vessels of holy water, aspergills,
crosiers, and censers. The executioner, a rat bearing an ax,
marches under the litter. This stately pageant Is followed
by the more lively scene In which the cat springs up and
catches a rat while the rest disperse In all directions.®

tic importance, which was her very raison d’etre, operated to her disadvan-
tage as a source of romantic interest.” Emily James Putnam: “The Lady”;

Sturgis and Walton Co.; New York; 1910; P. 13.

® But there is proof enough that classical antiquity loved the cat. Among
the objects unearthed at Pompeii was the skeleton of a woman bearing in her
arms the skeleton of a cat, whom perhaps she gave her life to save.

“ The Soul of Spain,” P. 290.

reproduction of this bas-relief may be found in G. E. Street’s “Gothic
Architecture in Spain”; Vol. II, P. 34.

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The Cat in Art

In Great Malvern Abbey rats may be seen hanging a cat
in the presence of owls who are looking on with an air of
legal wisdom and judicial gravity. In the Cathedral of
Rouen a cat chases a mouse round a pillar in the nave. In
Albert de Brule’s choir-stalls In San Giorgio Maggiore in
Venice, representing scenes from the life of St. Benedict,
several cats are Introduced. On one stall puss is quarrelling
with Benedict’s raven; on another she Is eating a mouse under
the couch of a sleepy brother, whom the saint Is endeavour-
ing to waken. There are two droll cats In the choir of the
old Minster In the Isle of Thanet.

Champfleury found a fifteenth century capital of a “ hideous
animal ” In the Museum of Troyes and a door-lintel at Rlcey-
Haute-Rive with a bas-relief of a cat in company with hens,
a fox, and a rat. VIollet-le-Duc, the restorer of the Chateau
of Pierrefonds ornamented the dormer windows of the inner
court with cats in different postures. Champfleury has chosen
a mother with a kitten between her teeth for reproduction.

In the pictures of the early Italian, Flemish, and Spanish
masters the cat frequently appears, seldom, if ever, I must
admit, very well painted. Nevertheless she Is to be found in
Annunciations, Holy Families, Last Suppers, and Marriage
Feasts at Cana indiscriminately. I have no doubt that
some painter has included her with the elders among the fur-
tive observers of Susanna’s plight. Bassano painted and re-
painted the departure from the Ark and Invariably In these
pictures a big, brindled, self-satisfied cat leads the procession,
for it has pleased the artist to follow the Arabian rather
than the Biblical legend. Occasionally, indeed, puss is al-
ready frightening a rabbit or pouncing on a dove. In Tin-
toretto’s Leda a tabby snaps at a duck.

In the Vatican Gallery hangs an Annunciation by Baroccio
In which a great silver cat sleeps on the Virgin’s work and in
another painting by the same artist to be seen at Budapest a
tranquil cat on a cushion regards the visiting angel through

215

The Tiger in the House

half-opened sleepy eyelids. What are angels to her, indeed?
Another cat characteristically indifferent to angelic visitations
may be observed in the Annunciation of Federigo Zucchero on
the portico of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova at
Florence and the cat also appears in two frescos by Puccio in
the choir of the cathedral at Orvieto. In the one Saint Ann’s
great white cat arches her back, lifts her tail, and drives a
dog from the room; in the second, while others are occupied
looking at the newly born Virgin she stands on her hind legs
and helps herself to some food on a little table. In Baroccio’s
famous altar-piece. La Madonna del Gatto in the National
Gallery in London, the cat, of course, is the centre of interest.
The infant St. John holds a struggling bird high over his head
and the cat rises towards it. In Ghirlandajo’s celebrated
fresco of The Last Supper in the refectory of the Monastery
of San Marco in Florence a most intelligent cat scowls dis-
approvingly at Judas. Benvenuto Cellini, too, places a cat
at the feet of Judas in one of his bas-reliefs. Is it possible
that this juxtaposition may be regarded as uncomplimentary
to the animal? The cat in Veronese’s The Marriage at Cana
is not the most easily remembered detail of this large canvas.
Many of Veronese’s pictures contain cats but so carelessly
painted that they might be taken for weasels or lap-dogs.
Benozzo Gozzoli painted the cat in the scene of the Ark on
the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa and a black cat with
amber eyes occupies herself watching the maids washing the
new-born Virgin in the Oratorio of San Bernardino at Siena.

“ The picture which of all others, however, best illustrates
the temper of the cat as the Italians knew her two hundred
years ago, and as we know her today, was painted by Luca
Giordano, and hangs in the Imperial Gallery of Vienna,”
Agnes Repplier observes with some humour. ‘‘ It is another
presentation of that ever familiar theme, the birth of the
Blessed Virgin. Saint Ann sits upright on her bed. Saint
Joachim enters the door. The spacious room is full of attend-

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The Cat in Art

ants, engaged in waiting on their mistress, in airing the
baby linen, in washing and admiring the infant. Everybody
is busy and excited. Everybody save Saint Ann is standing,
or kneeling on the floor. There is, in fact, but one chair in
the room. On that chair is a cushion, and on that cushion
sleeps, serene and undisturbed, a cat.”

Many Flemish artists painted cats. In Hieronymus Bosch’s
The Birth of Eve a fierce puss is devouring an innocent tad-
pole and in van Tulden’s Orpheus Taming the Beasts, while
the other animals seem to be lulled pleasantly by the music,
the cat is on the point of attacking a lion. These pictures
are in the Prado Museum at Madrid. In the genre pictures
of the Dutch school cats naturally play their decorative part,
basking by the great stoves, or frisking with kittens, or steal-
ing meat. Jan Steen, Jordaens, Jan Fyt, Willem van Mieris
and Rembrandt all occasionally included cats in their designs.
In Munich there is an Annunciation by Hendrick met de Bles
in which the Blessed Virgin’s cat, a handsome white beast,
sleeps by her mistress’s side.

Fragonard painted a cat or two. In Jan Breughel’s Para-
dise Lost in the Louvre the cat sleeps contentedly while our
parents are being driven forth. This is perfectly catlike;
it also serves to remind us that God did not drive cats out of
the Garden. In Franz Floris’s Garden of Eden puss lies
stretched between the feet of Adam and Eve. The cat sleeps
again beneath the elevated stove in Lebrun’s unsophisticated
Sleep of the Infant Jesus in the Louvre. Watteau painted a
delicious Chat vialade, rolled up like a baby in the arms of his
little mistress, who is weeping. An Italian comedy doctor,
with skull-cap and eye-glasses, attends the Invalid with a
majestic air, while the cat himself makes a face like a spoiled
child at the smell of the medicine. There is a puss in
Velasquez’s Las Hilanderas. Gainsborough’s Child with a
Cat In the Metropolitan Museum In New York is a familiar
picture but the child Is painted with m.ore care than the cat.

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The Tiger in the House

One could go on and on listlessly with this dull catalogue.
These cats have no great interest but they serve to indicate
that puss roamed home and studio with as much freedom three
centuries ago as she does today. The old Italian and Dutch
artists introduced grimalkins into their pictures because they
saw them about the place, but they only introduced them as
decoration or ornament, like vine-leaf or vase, chair or table,
although Hamel ® suggests that occasionally they may have
wished to indicate the animal spirit that dwells in human
beings: “Sir Joshua Reynolds painted two portraits of

young girls, one holding a cage with a mouse in it, the other
a kitten. The former is called Muscupula and the latter
Felina, and it may be surmised that he intended to show in
their features the imitative sympathy young children have
with young animals.” This tendency may be studied in more
modern painting. Boris Anisfeld has painted his daughter,
Morelia Borisovna, with her hand on the head of a black and
white puss. Both girl and cat have a band of black hair over
their eyes and as the expression in each case is nearly identi-
cal the artistic intention of the painter is obvious. A red-
haired lady in a picture which hangs in a corridor of the Hotel
Astor carries her counterpart, a red and white pussy, sound
asleep in her lap. Renoir, too, was conscious of the relation-
ship between animals and people. In Le garcon an chat,
(1868) a superb example of languid grace, beauty, and in-
dolence, a boy stands in a luxurious attitude with his arm drawn
round a luxurious cat. The faces are brought close together
and there is a decided resemblance between the two. In La
femme au chat (1878—9) a country girl sleeps with a cat
asleep in her lap. These cats, it may be added, are extremely
well painted. It was not Renoir’s custom to approach any
subject in a half-hearted way.

There have been, however, painters who devoted themselves
to the cat, who painted cats with accessories, instead of cats as

® “ Human Animals,” P. 42.

218

BORIS ANISFELD’S PORTRAIT OF HIS DAUGHTER, MORELLA BORISOVNA,

AND HER CAT

'IV

M ; < I

^1=

..pii

The Cat in Art

accessories. There was, for example, Gottfried Mind, to
whom Madame Lebrun once gave the sobriquet of the
“ Raphael of Cats,” a name by which he continues to be known
to this day, although his work bears as little relation to
Raphael’s as the Belgian Shakespeare’s bears to that of the
author of Timon of Athens. Of Hungarian origin Mind
was born at Berne in 1768 ; he died in 1814. He consecrated
his life to painting bears and cats, mostly cats, animals to
which he was devoted. When in 1809 an epidemic of mad-
ness broke out among the cats of Berne and a general massacre
followed Mind was inconsolable although he saved his own
Minette. The painter and his cats were inseparable and his
Minette was always by his side. Sometimes she would sit
upon his knees while kittens perched on his shoulders and
rather than disturb his friends he would remain in one at-
titude for hours. To his cats he was unfailingly polite and
affable but he treated men with the same scant courtesy that
Jeremy Bentham allotted to humans.

I have not seen any of Mind’s original drawings; indeed I
have seen but few reproductions of his work. These are in-
teresting and indicate a deep talent for cat painting. Dep-
ping writes of him (“ Biographie Universelle ”) ; “ His pic-

tures were, one might almost say, cat-portraits; he gave every
shade of expression to their soft and cunning faces; he lent
infinite variety to the graceful attitude of kittens playing with
their mother; he depicted the silky coat of the cat perfectly;
in short the cats painted by Mind seemed to be alive.” This
praise of Mind’s work may be a little excessive, but his fame
as one of the earliest of the cat painters is still considerable.

Delacroix painted cats which resembled tigers more than

Once when a similar epidemic broke out among her cats and Mabel Dodge
found it necessary to put several of them out of their misery, especially to
protect the few who had not succumbed to the contagion, a guest walked the
streets of Florence saying to whomever would listen, “ Murder has been com-
mitted at the villa Curonia!”

219

The Tiger in the House

household pets and his pupil, Louis Eugene Lambert, was
a celebrated cat painter. His Family of Cats did hang in the
Luxembourg Gallery in Paris; perhaps it does still. On this
rather conventional canvas the mother sits on the table and
superintends the antics of her mischievous kittens.

Of Henriette Ronner, whom writers on two continents and
an island or two united to honour on her seventieth birthday,
1 cannot speak with any enthusiasm. She painted cats all
her life and several albums devoted to her pictures of pussies
have been published. I have one or two of these myself.
These pictures are sentimental; they are “story pictures,”
but that is not their worst fault. They are carelessly ob-
served, superficial. In such a canvas as her Banjo Madame
Ronner can be very ingratiating, but in such a picture she has
said all that she ever says. It is apparent at once that this
lady, who painted cats for several decades, never learned
more about them than the most casual observer would know
at first glance. She makes no attempt at differentiation; one
of her cats looks much like any other. They are usually
represented in families, a fond mother looking on while the
babies play in and out of work-baskets, on chess-boards, in
empty bird-cages or clocks. The sort of thing for which, no
doubt, you could depend upon an immediate purchaser, who
would sign a cheque with an added encomium, “ My, aren’t
they sweet!” Well, of course, they are. Madame Ronner
caught a certain playful streak in kittens although some of her
kittens are almost as wooden as Henry IV doors; she caught
texture in fur; her arrangements are sometimes happy; but
she never, it seems to me, captured the soul of the cat, be-
cause au fond, Madame Ronner was a Belgian hourgeoise and
It takes an aristocrat with a Persian soul to understand the
soul of a cat.

11 H is work may be studied in “ Les Chiens et les Chats d’Eiig^ne Lambert,”
by G. de Cherville; Paris; 1888. This book is illustrated with six etchings
(all of cats) and one hundred and forty-five drawings of cats and dogs.

220

BANJO

Fyom the painting by Henriette Ronner

1 ,

The Cat in Art

Champfleury shoots most of his enthusiastic sky-rockets to
celebrate an obscure English painter named Burbank and
claims to have discovered him, but Mrs. Hoey in her transla-
tion of “ Les Chats ” exposes the French writer in the follow-
ing footnote : “ M. Champfleury has drawn upon his imagina-

tion for these facts. In Graves’ Dictionary of Artists, Bur-
bank is described as an animal painter who exhibited twenty-
seven pictures in London between the years 1825—1872, twelve
of them in the Royal Academy.” Champfleury says, ” A few
years ago I saw a wonderful water-colour drawing, represent-
ing a cat’s head, life-size, in the studio of Dantan, the sculptor.
In this picture there were melted and mingled certain qualities
which make a Holbein, or a plodding clockmaker, a Denner,
or a forger of bank notes. It would be useless to attempt
to describe the eyes of the animal as they looked into the face
of the spectator. The pen becomes useless before the marvel-
lous tints of those eyes. And yet here was a painter whose
brush was capable of rendering strange looks. . . . This
painting is the result of the prolonged attention of an observer
whose fault is that of coldness. Excessive application and
exactness have the counter quality of lessening the enthusiasm
of the artist. Cold and correct, passionate and incorrect; so
few men are quite perfect! ... So great is the importance
that I attribute to Burbank that I venture to assert, if the cat
painted by this artist were placed among the ancient draw-
ings in the Louvre, not only would it hold an honourable place
there, but it would attract the attention of all who are ca-
pable of appreciating the interpretation of truth.” To some,
who have seen only such reproductions of Burbank’s work as
Champfleury offers, this description may seem a trifle exag-
gerated; to others, I dare say, it will not.

Edouard Manet painted cats several times. There is, for
instance, the etching of the cat among flowers, which he made
for the edition de luxe of Champfleury’s volume which is not,
to be sure, very convincing evidence of his skill in this direction.

221

The Tiger in the House

But the poster he painted for this book, the celebrated Ren-
dez-voiis des Chats, in which a superb black carl-cat is paying
attention to a white queen among the chimney tops, while their
tails are flaunted in the face of the rising moon, is amazing.
On the bed of the nude Olympia a black cat arches his back.
It was probably the artist’s somewhat ribald intention to sug-
gest the familiar of a modern sorceress. This cat, soon
known as “ the cat of Monsieur Manet,” for a time enjoyed
a siicch de scandale. Now that the picture has reached the
Louvre it has become old hat and neither the lady nor her
pussy are much talked about any more.

Aubrey Beardsley occasionally painted cats, and as well
may be imagined he painted them black. Wicked demon cats
are the cats of Aubrey Beardsley. In Aymer Vallance’s
iconography of Beardsley’s work he notes a design for Mein-
hold’s Romance, “ Sidonia the Sorceress ” with the demon-cat,
Chim. William Morris criticized this drawing unfavourably
and it is almost certain that Beardsley destroyed it. Among
his grotesques for “ Bon Mots ” is one of a woman with a
cat, an eldritch beast with spread claws and a horrid face.
Vallance mentions a Pierrot with a black cat which I have not
seen. For the large paper edition of Poe’s “ Tales of Mystery
and Wonder” (Stone and Kimball; Chicago; 1895) Beard-
sley made four drawings, of which the one for The Black Cat
Is perhaps the most striking.

I do not believe I have ever found cats in art which so
completely satisfied me as the cats of Grandville. Jean-
Ignace-Isadore Gerard, who called himself Grandville, was
born at Nancy, September 15, 1803, and he died March 17,
1847. tde was an illustrator and he designed lovely and
amusing pictures for the works of Beranger, the Fables of
Florian, Lavalette, and La Fontaine, “ Gulliver’s Travels ”
and ” Robinson Crusoe.” Even in these cats may be found
but for the finest examples of his drawings of felines you must
turn to “ Les Metamorphoses du Jour,” “ Les Animaux Peints

222

The Cat in Art

Par Euxmemes,” “ Album des Betes,” “ Cents Proverbes,”
and especially, “ La Vie Privee et Publique des Animaux.”
When I first opened this latter book, indeed, I simply chortled
for joy as I experienced an enthusiasm which I had never
before felt for the cats of any artist. The sickly sentiment of
Madame Ronner, the commonplaces of Burbank, even the
drawings of Mind had left me more or less as they found me,
but the drawings of Grandville gave me the requisite thrill.

When I stumbled upon Grandville’s drawings, almost by
accident, for they are not reproduced in any of the cat books
I have seen and the volumes in which they originally appeared
are now very rare, I almost shrieked for joy. Here are cats !
I shouted: Here, indeed, are cats! For Grandville not only

solved the conflicting problems of grace and strength, he also
solved the far more difficult problems of individuality and ex-
pression.^- You, who have a favourite grimalkin or matou or
tabby queen, you know that your cat looks different from the
cat in the next block. His gestures are different; his eyes are
different. But cat painters, as a whole, have not felt this
difference. That is why, although they have painted many
cats, few cat pictures remain in the memory. You remember
the details of a set of Goya prints because, while each is in-
fused with the strong personality of the artist, each suggests
something new, just as you forget a set of Charles Dana Gib-
son prints because every one suggests the same thing as its
neighbour, which is nothing at all. In the latter nineties a
popular song proclaimed that All coons look alike to me.
A paraphrase of this idea seems to have been the princi-
pal inspiration of cat painters, who apparently have said to
themselves: “We must learn how to paint fur, how to

paint strength, how to paint grace, how to paint eyes, etc.,”
but they have seldom perceived that they must also learn how
to paint character. Indeed it may never have occurred to

Grandville asserted that he had observed seventy-five different expressions
in cats.

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The Tiger in the House

Madame Ronner to consider whether or not cats have char-
acter. If it did occur to her she never made the slightest
attempt to put this idea into her pictures.

Now Grandville never, or hardly ever, except in the homely
illustrations for “ Robinson Crusoe,” or for Beranger’s poems,
draws a cat in an ordinary situation. He surrounds his cats
with fantastic touches, dresses them in clothes, asks them to
use furniture, but so sure is his touch, so correct his feeling,
that for days after I had seen his cats it did not seem right
to me that Feathers should not march on her hind paws and
wear gowns. These gowns, these attitudes, these gestures,
seemingly human and uncatlike, all fall into place and become
indispensable attributes of cat character. Recall the little
minx in an ermine robe reclining on a couch. No one ever saw
a real cat in a gown from the Rue de la Paix; no one ever saw
a real cat lying in the attitude affected by this little lady, very
nearly the same as that in which Caro-Delvaille painted Mad-
ame Simone, and yet any one would recognize this puss should
she walk through the doorway to confront the picture, so
strongly does the drawing suggest character. So, too, you
would know the Chinese cat, or the demure and frightened
female on the roof, vacillating between the white agathodemon
and the black kakodemon cats while the chimney pots grin dis-
approval. In ” Cent Proverbes ” to illustrate A bon chat,
bon rat, Grandville has drawn an adorable matou in a top
coat with a portmonaie projecting from his pocket, high hat
held behind his back, and bouquet, bowing to a rat dressed as
a lady of the ballet. The scene is the stage of the Opera.
The picture of the kittens playing with a mouse-doll while
mama knits under a stuffed rat in a glass case is also very
amusing. So is the scene from Balzac’s story in which
Beauty meets her Bohemian lover on the rooftop and almost
yields to his impetuous importunities. Indeed, the saucy ex-

13 Peines de Coeur d’une Chatte Anglaise ” in “ Vie Privee et Publique des
Animaux.”

224

THE ENTRANCE OF THE RESPECTABLE PUFF

From a drawing by Grandville in Vie privee et publique des animaux

■A:

' I

(

The Cat in Art

pression of the costaud, Brisquet, is fascinatingly caught.
But my eternal favourite is the engraving illustrating the en-
trance of the respectable Puff in the same story, Puff whose
manners were those of a cat who had seen the court and the
world; he had two valets in his service; he ate from Chinese
porcelain; he only drank black tea; he went to drive in Hyde
Park; he was about to enter parliament; Puff, “milord
matoii! ” This resplendent orange and black Angora is in-
troduced to little white Beauty as a possible mate. He comes
into the hall, walking, of course, on his hind paws; he wears
a gorgeous overcoat and he holds a silk hat, while two
monkey flunkeys carry his tail. His eyes bulge with naive
vanity and poor Beauty, overcome by this splendour, curtseys
before him. This to me is the acme, the alpha and omega,
the A and Z, the Carpaccio and Shakespeare, the Gluck and
Stravinsky, the Napoleon and Mohammed of all cat pictures.
Grandville has not only created one cat character herein, he
has created two. If you have ever seen a superb Persian
matou enter a room in which he was expected to perform the
ceremony described in Chapter XXII of James Branch Ca-
bell’s “ Jurgen ” you will be in a better position to understand
and appreciate this very extraordinary drawing.

Louis Wain’s rakish London cats are amusing; he is not
so keen an observer as Grandville ; nor yet so good a draughts-
man, and yet there is much to admire in these ribald pussies
who smoke cigars and ride motorcycles. There is really a
good deal of character in these drawings. Wain is especially
successful at depicting ram-cats. In most of his pictures the
eyes are emphasized to such an extent that they seem almost
to epitomize the cat, but I think his feeling in this matter has
been correct; the eyes are undoubtedly the most important
single feature of the cat. Wain once remarked that draw-
ing felines was as difficult as drawing circles freehand.

Wain’s Annual” and elsewhere; Wain has illustrated a number of books
and made innumerable postcards and calendars.

225

The Tiger in the House

There should be a word for Lady Chance’s exceedingly
delightful wash drawings of cats. Lady Chance has stepped
in upon puss in many of the interesting moments of her life,
but perhaps her supreme achievement is her drawing of the
cat with the closed eyes. These little sketches are full of
mystery and charm. Arthur Tomson’s drawings are more
conventional and certainly not as interesting. There is a
fascinating verisimilitude about Harrison Weir’s drawings.
His cats, mostly in commonplace attitudes, have body. They
are honest and they are not sentimental. On the other hand
they are entirely bereft of mystery. Mrs. Janvier’s pic-
tures are entertaining. Like Grandville and Louis Wain she
has half humanized her cats, dressed them up and asked them
to walk upright. The two knights who struggle for the
Princess Catina’s love in the picture called Taunting Mews
are most aggressive, splendid beasties, and in Crawley Mezvs
she has drawn some curious and strange animals.

Elisabeth F. Bonsall has illustrated several American cat
books. In “ The Book of the Cat ” she has an opportunity
in full-page coloured illustrations to exhibit the range of her
talent. Her cats are more often thoughtful and dignified
than playful. They gaze into the fire or at the observer with
half-shut eyes, they sleep sprawled across open books. But in
pieces of rapid action such as the kitten playing with the leaves
or the toms on the roof she is less successful.

Of the moderns Steinlen is probably the greatest of the cat
artists. His book “ Des Chats” dessins sans paroles”)
is a joy. Steinlen made many posters of cats (they serve
decorative purposes as well or better than Cheret’s dashing

Mrs. W. Chance: “A Book of Cats.”

Graham R. Tomson: “Concerning Cats.”

Harrison Weir: “Our Cats, and All About Them.”

Catherine A. Janvier: “London Mews.”

19 “ The Book of the Cat,” with facsimiles of drawing in colour by Elisabeth
F. Bonsall and with stories and verses by Mabel Humphreys; F. A. Stokes
Co.; 1903.

226

COVER DESIGN FOR STEINLEN’S DES CHATS

Til

The Cat in Art

barmaids) and the cover for this book is a revision in colour
of a celebrated poster, Lait pur sterilise .... A grey tabby
claws the skirts of a child bearing a bowl of milk; a black cat
rubs calinely against her leg, while a tortoise-shell, a black
Persian, and a brown tabby yowl pleasantly and expectantly.
An orange tabby, a little aloof, arches his back and says,
“Please!” Other cats are seen rapidly approaching.

Steinlen is the only painter, past or present, who has been
successful in drawing cats in action and this volume bears
testimony to his ability in this direction. The sheets of this
large folio are filled with drawings in black and white. They
are like the films of a cinema reel; each picture gives us a little
more knowledge of movement. Observe, for instance, the
page entitled. Poor Little Mouse! on which three Siamese cats
shake a rodent out of a trap and capture it. Every detail
of this incident is set down with rare fidelity to both movement
and the nature of the animal. The horrible end of a goldfish
teaches us that all cats who attempt indoor fishing do not
meet the tragic death of Gray’s celebrated Selima. The cat
with the ball of yarn is a masterpiece of carefully observed
action and the kitten with the burning cigar is equally divert-
ing. The page described as Miaiilenients is a delightful mis-
cellany of mothers carrying their babies, or suckling them,
and toms fighting. There are eleven heads on this page, care-
ful cat portraits, each differentiated as to character and tem-
perament. On the page called Paresse, Steinlen has permitted
himself to draw cats in repose, yawning, stretching cats, cats
arching their backs, cats sleeping in a dozen or more attitudes.
All these are done very surely in a few convincing strokes.
The character of the cats is well differentiated in all of these
vibrant pages. The dignified black Persian who is the victim

20 Renouard comes near to doing so. There are several pages devoted to
cats in his volume entitled “ Croquis d’Animaux.” I feel sure that both Ben-
jamin Rabier and Caran d’Ache must have drawn cats, but I do not seem to
be able to find any among such drawings of theirs as I have at hand.

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The Tiger in the House

of a baby with a wooden horse is a very different animal from
the black cat who steals the butter from the baby’s bread.

Oliver Herford’s specialty is kittens for whom, undoubtedly,
he has a peculiar feeling. These kittens are suffused with more
life than any Henriette Ronner ever painted. They are
roguish, innocent, rakish, wistful, but always adorable balls of
fur, for it is ever his fancy to paint babies of the Persian tribe.
Mr. Herford’s kittens are scattered through most of his
volumes of poetry and through many magazines as well, but
the perusal of two books, “ The Rubaiyat of a Persian Kit-
ten ” and “ A Kitten’s Garden of Verses ” will give you an
excellent idea of his work. Observe, for instance, the smug,
short-legged, snub-nosed kitten who sits opposite the lines
called “ Happy Thought ” :

The world is so full of a number of mice
I’m sure that we all should be happy and nice.

This surely is Vachel Lindsay’s good kitten who wore his
ribbon prettily and washed behind his ears. The picture
called Foreign Kittens^ too, is very attractive to me. A Per-
sian kitten in characteristic attitude watches through a win-
dow some common cats on the back fence. This puss is ob-
served from the back and she has been well observed. . The
Whole Duty of Kittens is quite as pleasing. More celebrated,
more amusing, and perhaps better drawn are the illustra-
tions for “ The Rubaiyat.” How perfect is the branch of
pussy-willows, for example. How much at times kittens re-
semble pussy-willows and caterpillars!

It was with Oliver Herford that Fania Marinoff and I met
a particularly kitten-like caterpillar. One fine day in summer
we all stopped together to look at some fuzzy red caterpil-
lars that promenaded on the branches of the shrubs inside the
railing of Gramercy Park. One lusty little fellow, deter-

21 Oliver Herford’s monogram is in the form of a cat. He calls it his
“ Cat-of-Arms.”

228

The Cat in ^Art

mined no doubt to see the world, tumbled out on the sidewalk,
and with the most terrific speed m,ade for the kerb. Fania, de-
termining to save his life, picked him up and put him gently
back on the earth inside the fence. He immediately started
out again and in a short time was back at the kerb. Now I
picked him up and tossed him a yard or so on the grass back
of the grating. He returned with an air of abandoned per-
sistence which gave one the idea that he knew what he wanted
to do. Mr. Herford next assumed the role of the god in
the car and tossed him still farther back. Will you believe
it that this obstinate kitten-like, fuzzy, red, baby caterpillar
came back a third time and before our astonished gaze walked
across the street to the Players’ Club, where for all I know
he may have spun his cocoon and turned into a butterfly or
a fairy!

But the early Egyptians, the Chinese, and other orientals
have probably made better art out of the cat than any one
else, for the simple reason that they have seldom attempted
to draw or model the animal realistically. Their sculpture,
their frescos, their woodblocks are generally fantastic or con-
ventionalized. Thus they have expressed the essential mystery
of the most mysterious of living beings. The old bronze cats
of the Egyptians are still full of the breath of life. You may
study several examples in the Metropolitan Museum in New
York. There you may see two bronze cases for cat mummies,
each of which supports a cat figure in bronze, one crouching,
the other seated upright. Both of these objects are endowed
with a soft green patina. There also you may find several ex-
quisite blue faience figures of cats, and an entire case is filled
with bronzes. The figures are mostly in the same position,
seated, but they are all beautiful. One head, especially, was
formed by the artist in honest love. It is perhaps the finest
cat-head in the history of art, transcendent in its dignity, nobil-
ity, and mystery.

The Japanese and the Chinese too are almost Invariably

229

The Tiger in the House

successful in depicting the domestic tiger, no matter in what
medium they work. They begin by forgetting the fur and it
is on the technique of painting fur that most occidental paint-
ers waste their time, I think. Arthur Davison Ficke once told
me that the secret of Japanese painting was that the artist
never worked from a model; he worked from memory. The
result is that when he drew a cat on his block he was drawing
his feeling for the cat. Hokusai made innumerable coloured
prints of cats, some of which are reproduced in Champfleury's
book, and all of which have charm and grace. There is an
adorable cat in the first Kiyonobu’s print of The Princess and
the Kitten, a prancing, frantically exhilarating creature.
Anci cats wander in and out of the work of Harunobu, Kiyom-
itsu, Koriusai, Kitao Masanobu, and Buncho. The Mon-
golians, too, love to represent the cat in porcelain. I have
a Chinese cat, Chuang Tzu, ivory porcelain spotted with black,
who sits recumbent on his four paws, gazing with his eternal
eyes into the mystic maze of the centuries. He has already
visited four continents and he has forgotten that time exists.
Other Japanese and Chinese artists have represented the cat
asleep or just about to awaken, or playing, but always with the
grace of love, the understanding of sympathy, -and the un-
escapable oriental touch of mystery. These artists because
they never say too much, have expressed without apparent
difficulty what European artists almost always fail to ex-
press. A row of these exotic images from China would re-
create the wonder of the animal, if she should suddenly be-
come extinct. The art of feeling the hidden recesses of feline
reserve is now, it would seem, exclusively Asiatic.

There is a story to this picture. Josan No Miya, The Princess, was an
aristocratic young person much sought after by the youths of the region, but
she remained in seclusion until one day when her cat, startled by the noise
of the young men come into the courtyard to woo, escaped from her, she
impulsively ran after it.

230

From the Japanese print by Kiyonobii I, in the collection of Arthur
Dai'ison Ficke

THE PRINCESS AND THE CAT

Chapter T^en: The Cat in Fiction

In the second of his imaginary dialogues with Edmund
Gosse, George Moore complains of the absence of animals in
“ Tom Jones ” and “ Vanity Fair.” ” Both books lack in-
timacy of thought and feeling. No one sits by the fire and
thinks what his or her past has been and welcomes the ap-
proach of a familiar bird or animal. I do not remember any
dog, cat, or parrot in ‘ Vanity Fair,’ and I am almost certain
that ‘ Tom Jones ’ is without one. ... I have forgotten their
names but I am conscious of the presence of dogs and cats
in Dickens’s pages.” It is true that animals play an important
role in prose fiction, more important than is often realized, for
a book without animals is seldom a living book. Cats sleep
by the fire or frisk across the leaves of many a romance. In
“Bleak House” alone there are three cats: Krook’s snarl-

ing Fady Jane, who follows her master, as Charmion followed
Cleopatra, or perches hissing on his shoulder: she is the symbol
of his mystery; the Jellybys’ cat, who, more often than not,
disposes of poor Mr. Jellyby’s morning milk; and the name-
less cat of Mr. Vohles, the lawyer. Then there is Mrs.
Pipchin’s old cat, little Paul Dombey’s friend, who coiling him-
self in the fender purrs egotistically, “ while the contracting
pupils of his eyes looked like two notes of admiration.” In
“ Pere Goriot,” Madame the Keeper of the Pension is ac-
companied on her introduction by her cat, Mistigris. In the
end, all her boarders having deserted her, it is announced as
a final blow that Mistigris has disappeared. “ Cats are very
graceful and very clean,” proclaims Mrs. Penniman to her
brother in “ Washington Square,” when the good doctor sug-
gests the drowning of the kittens. And in “ A Small Boy

231

The Tiger in the House

and Others,” Henry James remarks that he rubbed himself
against the Seine-front in Paris, ‘‘ for endearment and con-
secration, as a cat invokes the friction of a protective piece
of furniture.” Somewhere George Eliot has written:
” Who can tell what just criticisms the cat may be passing on
us beings of wider speculation? ” Chattie, a very impersonal
puss, plays a small part in the opening scenes of ” Robert
Elsmere.” Jean Jacques Rousseau in ” Emile ” comments
upon the analogy between the curiosity of the child and that
of the cat: “Observe a cat entering a room for the first

time : it searches and smells about, it is not quiet for a mo-
ment, it trusts nothing until it has examined and made ac-
quaintance with everything. Just in the same way would a
child who was beginning to walk, and, so to speak, entering
upon the unknown space of the world, demean itself.” Nor
must we forget Don Quixote’s adventures in the castle of
the Duke of Villahermosa. Chanting a love-song in his
chamber at midnight, the knight is suddenly disturbed by a
prodigious caterwauling and ringing of bells. “ Such was the
din of the bells and the squalling of the cats, that though the
duke and the duchess were the contrivers of the joke, they
were startled by it, while Don Quixote stood paralysed with
fear: and as luck would have it, two or three of the cats
made their way in through the grating of his chamber, and
flying from one side to the other, made it seem as if there
was a legion of devils at large in it. . . . Don Quixote sprang
to his feet, and drawing his sword, began making passes at
the grating, shouting out, ‘ Avaunt, malignant enchanters !
Avaunt ye witchcraft working rabble ! I am Don Quixote of
La Mancha, against whom your evil machinations avail not
nor have any power.’ ” When the duke ran in and laid hold
of a cat attached to the knight’s nose, the knight called out,
“ Let no one take him from me; leave me hand to hand with
this demon, this wizard, this enchanter; I will teach him, I
myself, who Don Quixote of La Mancha is.” The cat, how-

232

The Cat in Fiction

ever, snarled and held on. In Thomas Love Peacock’s
“ Gryll Grange,” we get a less goetic view of the cat. The
fragment may be regarded as autobiographical: “ In all its

arrangements his house was a model of order and comfort;
and the whole establishment partook of the genial physiog-
nomy of the master. From the master and mistress to the
cook, and from the cook to the tom cat, there was about the
inhabitants a sleek and purring rotundity of face and figure
that denoted community of feelings, habits, and diet; each in
its kind, of course, for the master had his port, the cook her
ale, and the cat his milk, in sufficiently liberal allowance.”
In ” The Hill of Dreams,” “ Lucian leant back and roared
with indecent laughter till the tabby tom-cat who had suc-
ceeded to the poor dead beasts looked up reproachfully from
his sunny corner, with a face like the reviewer’s, innocent and
round and whiskered.” Again Lucian meets a cat: ” In the

back street by which he passed out of the town he saw a large
‘ healthy’ boy kicking a sick cat; the poor creature had just
strength enough to crawl under an outhouse door; probably to
die in torments. He did not find much satisfaction in thrash-
ing the boy, but he did it with hearty good will.” In Henry
Handel Richardson’s “ Maurice Guest,” ‘‘ Peter the Fursts’
lean cat, had sneaked stealthily in upon this, to him, enchanted
ground and, according to the fancier, had caused the death
from fright, of a delicate canary, although the culprit had
done nothing more than sit before the cage, licking his lips.”
Wotan, the one-eyed cat in this book is a memorable figure.
Catulle Mendes, too, had a fancy for naming cats after Wag-
nerian heroes. Naming cats is beyond the powers of the ordi-
nary brain. Samuel Butler asserts that it is the test of literary
power: ‘‘They say the test of this is whether a man can

write an inscription. I say, ‘ Can he name a kitten?’ And
by this test I am condemned, for I cannot.” ^ Peter Whiffle

^ Samuel Butler was inspired when he wrote these lines in his note-book.
Out of every ten names sent in for registry with the Cat Fanciers’ Federation

233

The Tiger in the House

once named two cats, George Moore and George Sand.
Eventually they had children. The King turns to Perion,
“ fierce, tense, and fragile, like an angered cat,” in Mr. James
Branch Cabell’s ” The Soul of Melicent ” and “ Ele who
hunts with cats will catch mice ” is another figure from this
book. The incorrigible Jurgen tells of a ghost who once
haunted him who ” towards morning took the form of a
monstrous cat, and climbed upon the foot of my bed: and
there he squatted yowling until daybreak.” ^ And Jurgen,
speaking of the glory of the number nine, mentions the Muses,
the lives of a cat, and how many tailors make a man. Kip-
ling compares an engine leaping across a bridge to a cat streak-
ing along a fence. ” You closed your eyes while he was
kissing you like a cat being stroked,” is a figure from Octave
Mirbeau’s ” Chez I’illustre ecrivain.” Achmed Abdullah, in
” The Honorable Gentleman,” says that love is like ” wings
upon a cat, like rabbits’ horns, like ropes made of tortoise
hair.” Charles-Henry Hirsch, in ” ‘ Petit ’ Louis, Boxeur,”
describes a professional pugilist as “ leste comme line chatte.”
Her little head ...” as smooth as a ca't’s,” writes Gelett
Burgess in “ The White Cat.” ” He knows no more about
the world,” remarks a character in Mr. Chambers’s “ The
King in Yellow,” “ than a maiden cat on its first moonlight
stroll.” Peter, one of Mr. Dreiser’s ” Twelve Men,” tested
his skill ” by embalming a dead cat or two after the Egyptian

nine are returned because they have already been used. The lack of imag-
ination or invention most people display in christening pussies is almost beyond
credence.

2 In nightmare an oppression and suffocation are felt and one’s fancy im-
mediately conjures up a spectre to lie on one’s bosom. Scott writes of a man
dying, first afflicted by the vision of a large cat which came and disappeared
he could not tell exactly how, but the man liked cats and became almost indif-
ferent to the spectre until it turned into a gentleman-usher dressed “ as if to
wait upon a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a Lord High Commissioner of the
Kirk, or any other who bears on his brow the rank and stamp of delegated
sovereignty.” The hallucination finally took the form of a skeleton, and
the patient died under the effects of this visitation. “ Demonology and Witch-
craft,” P. 30.

234

The Cat in Fiction

manner.” In this same book Culhane, the solid man, asserts,
“ a dog . . . eats what he needs, and then stops. So does
a cat,” which, as Mr. Dreiser adds, is by no means true. In
Richard Middleton’s ” The Ghost Ship,” you may read, “ As
a rule the cat kept me company, and I was pleased with his
placid society, though he made my legs cramped. I thought
that I too would like to be a cat.” And again, “ Like a cat
I wanted to dream somewhere where I would be neglected by
friends and foes alike.” Yet again, “ Then there was the vi-
sion of two small feet that moved a long way off, and Toby
would watch them curiously as kittens do their tails, without
knowing the cause of their motion.” The postillion in “ Lav-
engro ” uses a wonderful cat figure in his description of a
priest: “ My mother had a sandy cat, which sometimes used

to open its mouth wide with a mew nobody could hear, and
the silent laugh of that red-haired priest used to put me won-
derfully in mind of the silent mew of my mother’s sandy-red
cat.” “ Growling to herself, something after the manner of
an old grimalkin when disturbed,” is a figure from “ The
Bible in Spain.”

Pierre Loti invariably writes of cats with a sympathy and
a comprehension that partakes of the mystic (“ stranger than
strange” is Henry James’s description of the performance),
and his fondness for the little animal causes him to mention her
frequently. Sometimes, in his books, she appears in person;
sometimes her qualities are used figuratively. In ‘‘ Japon-
eries d’Automne,” he speaks of the “ mous7nes aux yeux de
chat.” Rarahu, the quaint little heroine of “ Le Mariage de
Loti,” which reminds us that the author visited the South Seas
before Stevenson or Gauguin or the somewhat discredited hero
of “ The Moon and Sixpence,” loved a cat, a mournful beast
named Turiri, who was sick a good deal and followed her
mistress about, howling mournfully and eating blue butterflies.
She arched her back at the nude Chinaman who tried to
seduce Rarahu with presents, and once, after a hegira, she

235

The Tiger in the House

created a havoc at a feast by leaping on the table and dis-
turbing the cups and plates in very uncatlike fashion. Plum-
ket, one of the characters of the book, was called by the
Tahitians, “ Oeil de Chat” Loti’s cat figures are always de-
scriptive: Rarahu avait des yeux d!un noir roux, pleins d’une

langueur exotique, d’une douceur caline, comnie celle des jeunes
chats quand on les caresse.” Another: “ avec une prestesse
de jeune chatte nerveuse et courroucee” Still another:
“ Comme deux chattes qui vont se rouler et s’ egratigner les
deux petites se regardaient.” He hears some Chinese actors,
" avec des vo'ix de chats de gouttieres.”

His biographical pictures of his two cats, Moumoutte
Blanche and Moumoutte Chinoise, are perhaps the most care-
ful studies of cats that exist. Who that loves either Loti
or pussies does not know them? In “Une bete galeuse,” ^
his subject is a tom cat suffering from mange, the dread lep-
rosy of cats, which has eaten the fur away from his head and
made it impossible for him further to make his toilet. Loti
rescues this poor beast from the wall where he has climbed
to die and with the aid of a groom in the stables gives him
chloroform. And with that unerring personal touch which is
one of his passwords into the company of the immortals, he
awakens our pity much more than our horror for the poor
dumb brute who as he is dying fixes Loti with his eyes which
seem to say, “ It was to kill me you rescued me. . . . And you
see, I am letting you do it. . . . It is too late. ... I shall
sleep.” And the poor sick head drops in the writer’s hand.

There is another harrowing study of a sick cat in the last
pages of “ En Rade.” Huysmans, of course, spares the
reader nothing. This lank, half-starved beast, belonging to
Aunt Norine, came into the monotonous lives of Jacques and
Louise. At first very wild, he rapidly became tame and “ he
rested finally sleeping with Louise, taking her throat between
his paws from time to time, and through friendliness rubbing

3 “ Le Livre de la Pitie et de la Mort.”

236

The Cat in Fiction

his head against her cheek.” A little later Huysmans de-
scribes the animal: “The fact is that this cat, thin as a

hundred nails, carried his pointed head in the form of a pike’s
jaw and as the climax of disgrace had black lips; his fur was
ashen grey, waved with rust, a vagabond’s garment, with the
hair dull and dry. His hairless tail was like a cord with a
little tuft at the end and the skin of his belly, torn, no doubt,
in a fall, hung like a fetlock of which the dirty hair swept the
ground. Were it not for his enormous caline eyes in the
green fluid of which golden gravel circled incessantly, he would
have been, under his poor and changeable coat, a low son of
the race of the gutters, an unspeakable cat.” Presently he be-
gan to die, suffering the most exquisite agony, an agony, which
readers of Huysmans may well believe, is protracted for pages
and discussed in detail. Indeed it may be said that this inci-
dent shares with the birth of the calf the dramatic interest of
the book. It is carefully observed. When Louise tried to
alleviate his suffering, “ he cried at each effort and she dared
not aid him because his poor body seemed to be a clavier
of pain which resounded to each touch.” Finally Louise
placed an apron over the poor beast and left him.

This cat was a composite picture of two of Huysmans’s own
cats. The death scene is a transcription of the final struggles
of Barre-de-Rouille, a big red tabby gutter cat, who was a
wonderful hunter and caught bats from Huysmans’s balcony at
night. He appears in his healthier days as one of the charac-
ters of “ En Menage.” A later occupant of Huysmans’s
household, Mouche, an ugly grey cat, sat for the description
of the feline in “ En Rade,” and appears more characteristi-
cally in “ La-Bas.” A true philosopher, he assists, curious
but calm, at the most intimate diversions of Durtal and his
mistress, while his green eyes seem to say, “ How useless all

^ This description is proof that Huysmans was well acquainted with cats,
if any such proof were needed. A cat is never able to locate pain. If his
foot hurts he will yowl if you touch his breast.

237

The Tiger in the House

this Is!” Mouche was an affectionate cat who waited for
Huysmans at the door and purred sympathetically when he
entered.

It is highly probable that Balzac meant his “ Peines de
Coeur d’une Chatte Anglaise ” ® to be something more than a
cat story. There is every reason to believe, indeed, that It
may be regarded as an ingenious satirical comparison of the
French and British manners of making love, an ironic
commentary on Anglo-Saxon respectability. Whether J.
Thomson, the English translator of the book in which It ap-
peared, felt that this satire was too keen for English minds
or whether he was shocked by certain rather lively passages
in the original, at any rate he saw fit to omit It from his version.
This story of the demure English puss brought up in a strict
household where she is taught to read the Bible and suppress
her desires is delicious. The cats of Albion, according to Bal-
zac, are always respectable and never natural. To the simple
white Beauty comes the remarkable and splendid Puff, a
superb Angora who is so bored that he goes to sleep in front
of his prospective mistress but she, with her lack of expe-
rience, Infatuated by his languor and magnificence, falls an
easy victim. She marries him but he continues to sleep every
night and she continues to suppress her desires. One night,
however, while he Is asleep, her curiosity overcomes her mod-
esty and she ascends to the rooftop where she makes the
acquaintance of a rowdy French maquereau cat named Bris-
quet, who immediately finds it convenient to assail her timid
heart with such effective ammunition that I think I cannot do
better than to reproduce his impassioned appeal in full in the
original French :

“Dear Beauty, de longtemps d’ici la nature ne pourra
former line Chatte auss'i parfaite que vous. he cachemire de
la Perse et des hides semhle etre du poll de Chameau compare

® “ vie Privee et Publiqiie des Animaux.”

238

BEAUTY AND BRISQUET

From a drawing by Grandville in Vie privee et publiqjie des animaux

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I'A.'H.

The Cat in Fiction

a VOS soies fines et brillantes. V oiis exhalez un parfum
a faire evanomr de bonheur les anges, et je I’ai senti du salon
dll Prince de Talleyrand, que j’ai quitte pour accourir a ce
deluge de sottises que vous appelez un meeting. Le feu de
VOS yeux eclaire la nuit! Vos oreilles seraient la perfection
meme si mes gemissements les attendrissaient. II n’ y a pas
de rose dans tonte I’ Angleterre qui soit aussi rose que la chair
rose qui borde votre petite bouche rose. Un pecheur cherch-
erait vainenient dans les abimes d’Ormus des perles qui puis-
sent valoir vos dents. Votre cher museau fn, gracieux, est
tout ce que V Angleterre a produit de plus mignon. La neige
des Alpes paraitrait rousse aupres de votre robe celeste. Ah!
ces sortes de polls ne se voient que dans vos brouillards!
Vos pattes portent mollement et avec grace ce corps qui est
I’abrege des miracles de la creation, mais que votre queue,
interprete elegant des mouvements de votre cceur, surpasse:
Old! jamais courbe si Aegante, rondeur plus correcte, mouve-
ments plus delicats ne se sont vus chez aucune Chatte.”

You will not be able to believe that any woman’s virtue
would be proof against such an attack, but Beauty fled from
it . . . only to return a few nights later. She began to feel
drawn towards the rooftops as Louise felt the call of Paris,
and when Brisquet began to talk carelessly about his con-
quest and she began to murmur in her sleep, “ Cher petit
homme!” in French, Puff at last woke up, dragged his un-
fortunate wife to Doctors’ Commons, and secured a divorce.
A little later Brisquet was stabbed in the back and the dis-
graced Beauty was left entirely alone. The irony of the story
lies in the fact that her husband has never satisfied her longings
and she has throughout been afraid to yield to her lover.
The little declassee at the end of the tale is as pure as the
virgin of the beginning.

In Balzac’s “ Une Fllle d’Eve,” the musician Schmuke has
a magnificent Angora named Murr : “ Je Vai nomme Murr,”

239

The Tiger in the House

remarks his master, " pur clorivier nodre crant Hoffmann te
Perlin, ke che paugouhe gonni.” Hoffmann’s cat Murr, in-
deed, was something more than a literary philosopher. The
death of Murr was one of the profound events in this fantastic
writer’s life. To his friend Litzig he wrote on November 30,
1821 : “In the night between the twenty-ninth and thirtieth

of November, my dear pupil, the cat Murr, w;ent to sleep to
relive in a better life, after short but violent suffering. He
was four years old and full of hope. Those who know that
I weep will understand my grief and will respect it — by their
silence.’’

There are many females in the novels of Emile Zola. He
began by putting two, one black, the other white, in his
“ Nouveaux Contes a Ninon.’’ In the foyer of the theatre
of Bordenaire in “ Nana ’’ there is an enormous red cat who
has an aversion for the odour of the gum which the old
comedian Bose rubs on his cheeks in order to attach his beard.
In “ La Faute de I’Abbe Mouret ’’ there are three cats, coun-
try cats, like Zola’s cats at Medan. The black one is
called Moumou. There is also Francois, the cat with the
hard, ironic, cruel gaze, of the diabolic stare in “ Therese
Raquin.’’ Zola’s own favourite was Minouche of “ La Joie
de Vivre,’’ a little white cat with delicate airs, whose tail
twitched with disgust at the sight of mud, but who nevertheless
ventured four times a year into the soft mud of the brooks.
Zola was an ardent ailurophile and there were always several
cats at Medan.

In that inconceivably stupid, pretentious, highfalutin, and
altogether reprehensible bundle of nonsense called “ Eugene
Aram,’’ Bulwer-Lytton has drawn an extraordinarily life-like
picture of a cat. As every human character in the book is
made of wax, or wood, or sand, and as cats are infinitely
more difficult to individualize and describe than men, this feat
must be set down as one of some importance. Jacobina, for
so is the grimalkin called, belongs to Corporal Bunting, whom

240

The Cat in Fiction

she loves with a unique devotion, which, of course, is returned,
for cats only display this emotion when it is richly deserved.
Corporal Bunting calls her “ daughter, wife, friend,” and the
brindled Jacobina rubs her sides against his leg and purrs.

Under the tutelage of the corporal she had become a re-
markable animal, learning to fetch and carry, to turn over
head and tail like a tumbler, to run up his shoulder, “ to fly as
if she were mad at any one upon whom the corporal saw fit
to set her; and, above all, to rob larders, shelves, and tables,
and bring the produce to the corporal, who never failed to
consider such stray waifs lawful manorial acquisitions. These
little feline cultivations of talent, however delightful to the
corporal, had, nevertheless, rendered the corporal’s cat a
proverb and byword in the neighbourhood. Never was a
cat in such bad odour; and the dislike in which it was held
was wonderfully increased by terror, — for the creature was
signally large and robust, and withal of so courageous a
temper, that if you attempted to resist its invasion of your
property it forthwith sat up its back, put down its ears, opened
its mouth, and bade you fully comprehend that what it felon-
iously seized it could gallantly defend. . . . Various deputa-
tions had, from time to time, arrived at the corporal’s cottage
requesting the death, expulsion, or perpetual imprisonment of
the favourite. But the stout corporal received them gruffly,
and the cat went on waxing in size and wickedness, and baffling,
as if inspired by the devil, the various gins and traps set for
its destruction.”

Miss Repplier relates an anecdote of a Southern gentleman
who brought suit in a court of law against his next-door
neighbour for alienating the affections of his cat. The testi-
mony declared that a certain maltese puss was the plaintiff’s
sole companion who spent her evenings devotedly by the side
of her master. This happy life was broken into by the advent
of a widow who rented the adjoining house and garden. Puss
visited the new neighbour and was welcomed. Soon she be-

241

The Tiger in the House

gan to pass her days there, but the gentleman overlooked this
as he was away until sundown and only began to miss his cat
when dinner time arrived. A little later, however, the fickle
maltese stayed away at night, and when brought back by force,
sulked and glowered in corners until she could again escape.
The widow declared in court that an intelligent cat had the
right to choose her own friends and surroundings and, however
the suit ended, one may be sure that the cat continued to ex-
ercise her own preferences.

In his very amusing “ Zut,” the talented Guy Wetmore
Carryl has related a similar story, the story of a cat who
lived in the epicerie of Jean-Baptiste Caille in the Avenue de
la Grande Armee in Paris. Zut was “ a white Angora cat of
surpassing beauty and prodigious size. She had come into
Alexandrine’s possession as a kitten, and, what with much eat-
ing and an inherent dislike for exercise, had attained her pres-
ent proportions and her superb air of unconcern. It was from
the latter that she derived her name, the which, in Parisian
argot, at once means everything and nothing, but is chiefly
taken to signify complete and magnificent indifference to all
things mundane and material: and in the matter of indifference
Zut was past-mistress. Even for Madame Caille herself, who
fed her with the choicest morsels from her own plate, brushed
her fine fur with excessive care, and addressed caressing re-
marks to her at minute intervals throughout the day, Zut
manifested a lack of interest that amounted to contempt. As
she basked in the warm sun at the shop door, the round face
of her mistress beamed upon her from the little desk, and the
voice of her mistress sent fulsome flattery winging towards
her on the heavy air. Was she beautiful, mon Dieu ! In
effect all that one could dream of the most beautiful! And
her eyes, a blue like the heaven, were they not wise and calm?
Mon Dieu, yes! It was a cat among thousands, a mimi al-
most divine.” Now Madame Alexandrine Caille bore a rich

242

The Cat in Fiction

resentment against Esperance Sergeot and her husband, the
proprietors of the very smart hair-dressing shop immediately
adjoining the grocery, and this resentment was increased when
one day she perceived Zut sitting in the doorway of this shop.
Zut had been allured and fascinated by the sweet odours, the
mirrors, the soft cushions, and when Esperance fed her cream
and fish, she capitulated and purred as she had not been in the
habit of purring for Alexandrine. Her mistress tore puss
away from this life of shameless luxury but Zut returned and
bore kittens at the hair-dresser’s. Now on this point the
Parisian law is explicit: kittens belong to the owner of the
premises on which they are littered; the owner of the cat has
no standing in the matter. Zut was delivered of one pure
white kitten, while the rest were “ any other colour,” mottled
types. Esperance concludes the situation and the story by re-
taining the prize and sending Zut and the rest of her brood
back to the grocery.

Rudyard Kipling, dropping into an appropriate folklore
style, has written a delicious story called, “ The cat that walked
by himself.” ® We are told how the cave man and his woman
persuaded the dog and the horse and the cow to give up their
freedom in return for food and protection; but the cat made
a bargain with the woman whereby he is offered milk and a
place under the roof by the hearth in return for doing only
what he cares to do and would do naturally if he were wild,
play and catch rrtice. ” The Cat keeps his side of the bargain.
He will kill mice and he will be kind to babies when he is in
the house, just so long as they do not pull his tail too hard.
But when he has done that, and between times, he is the Cat
that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him. Then
he goes out to the Wet Wild Woods or up on the Wet
Wild Trees or on the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his wild tail
and walking by his wild lone.”

® “ Just So Stories.”

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The Tiger in the House

Ambrose Bierce, too, curiously enough, approached the cat
in the folklore spirit, writing about him in the fable form, and
like the other fabulists somewhat paraphrased those who have
gone before him. His three feline fables are short enough
so that I can give them complete.

“ A cat was looking at a King, as permitted by the proverb.

“ ‘ Well,’ said the Monarch, observing her inspection of
the royal person, ‘ how do you like me? ’

“ ‘ I can imagine a King,’ said the Cat, ‘ whom I should like
better.’

“ ‘ For example ? ’

“ ‘ The King of the Mice.’

“ The sovereign was so pleased with the wit of the reply
that he gave her permission to scratch his Prime Minister’s
eyes out.”

“ A Cat fell in love with a handsome Young Man, and en-
treated Venus to change her into a woman.

” ‘ I should think,’ said Venus, ‘ you might make so trifling a
change without bothering me. However, be a woman.’

” Afterward, wishing to see if the change were complete,
Venus caused a mouse to approach, whereupon the woman
shrieked and made such a show of herself that the Young
Man would not marry her.”

“ Hearing that the Birds in an aviary were ill, a Cat went
to them and said that he was a physician, and would cure them
if they would let him in.

“ ‘ To what school of medicine do you belong? ’ asked the
Birds.

” ‘ I am a Miaulopathist,” said the Cat.

“ ‘ Did you ever practice Gohomoeopathy ? ’ the Birds in-
quired, winking faintly.

” The Cat took the hint and his leave.”

’'“Fantastic Fables”; G. P. Putnam’s Sons; 1899.

244

The Cat in Fiction

In “ Blind Alley,” Mr. W. L. George has written a book
about the effect of the war on an upper middle class English
family. Every character in the story, save alone the cat,
comes to the end of a blind alley as the result of the world
conflict and Mr. George seems to imply that England and
the world in general have come to the end of a blind alley
too. But through the general agitation, prostration, sex ex-
citement, stupidity, folly, worry, and anxiety of the book,
calmly walks Kallikrates, the orange Persian cat. Now if
Mr. George intended anything at all by this cat, and he must
have intended a good deal because Kallikrates opens and closes
the book and, along with an otherwise unmentioned creature
named Russet, receives half the dedication, he intended to con-
vey his superiority to any of the human beings about whom
he has written. There is about this feline an abstraction from
things real, a separation of spirit from matter, a meditative-
ness, which place him on a plane considerably higher than that
of the human philosophy which occasionally for brief periods
sustains the people of the book. ” Kallikrates,” murmurs Sir
Hugh, “ If you were a man I don’t think you would have
joined up.” . . . And again: “ Ah I Kallikrates didn’t care.

He went on purring, and drinking milk, and begging for toast.
And when he wanted you he put an enormous paw, lined
with orange velvet, upon your knee. And when he didn’t
want you he just walked away, leaving behind him a trail of
contempt. Oh ! fortunate cat, aloof from all passions and all
responsibilities, centre of his visible world, on whom no emo-
tions are enjoined and that dwells on an Olympus below the
crest of which loves and duties hang pale as clouds. Like a
god, looking down without emotion or curiosity on little serv-
ant men.” Later, in the midst of war. Sir Hugh apostro-
phizes the superb feline eunuch: ‘‘‘Sultan! Debauchee!
Don Juan! Casanova! Petronlus! Demetrios! Margue-
rite of Navarre and Maria Monk! Thou dost contain all
their sensuous souls. Oh, Kallikrates, lascivious and epicene!

245

The Tiger in the House

Is this not for thee a world of velvet and down, padded against
all shocks, running with the milk of Canaan and the honey of
Hymettus? When the last constellations faint and fall, as
thine own Sussex poet says, thou shalt neither faint nor fall.’
He poked the cat suddenly in the ribs: ‘ Get up! you fat yel-

low pig. Don’t you know that there’s a revolution going on
in Russia? Don’t sit there, and purr, and be superior to such
things. I’ll have no Plato in this house urging me to modera-
tion and aloofness. What do you think I keep you for?
Charity brat! Not to sit there like a sham Socrates, plead-
ing by your inaction that life and death are the same thing.’
Kallikrates very slowly rose, yawned enormously, stretched
and lay down again on his side, his rosy nose hidden between
his hind paws. Alone, a watchful strip of yellow eye showed
that he was ready to bite and claw if the sacred fur of his
belly was touched. For a moment Sir Hugh thought only
of his cat’s beauty. Then he came to regret that in the present
times beauty should be so little cared for, so easily abandoned,
when little mortals took to political agitation.” And at the
end of the book we leave the delightful Kallikrates on Sir
Hugh’s desk: “ A long stare of his amber eyes assured him

that nothing dangerous lay there. So slowly, cautiously, he
sank down, one after the other folded the velvet gauntlets of
his paws, composed his squat head into the sumptuous silk of
his ruff. His eyelids began to droop, the watchful strip of
gold below them grew less and less. He breathed louder;
by degrees there purred forth from his throat the soft song
that conceals neither joy, nor pain, nor hope, but is all content,
uncritical and faith eternal in the permanence of aloof good
things in an unchanging world.”

In many novels the cat has appeared as a domestic acces-
sory, a necessity of the fireside; in others he has played a part
in the drama, lived his little life, or died his little death, but,
for the first time, in “ Blind Alley ” he emerges as a critic and
philosopher, and a true superior to man.

246

Chapter Kleven: T^he Cat and the Poet

In that remarkable volume in which Cesare Lombroso at-
tempts to prove that all men of genius are tainted w'ith insanity
he makes a complete case against Charles Baudelaire. The
charges are that he wrote three poems about cats. But if
three poems would put the poet of the “ Fleurs du Mai ” in
Bedlam, Madame Deshoulieres, who wrote more than a dozen,
Heinrich Heine, Joseph Victor von Scheffel, Raoul Gineste,
and Oliver Herford would have to be strait-jacketed and given
the water cure! Why, one might ask the learned professor,
were he still alive, is it any more evidence of insanity to choose
puss for the subject of a rhyme than a mountain or a man,
not to speak of a Greek vase or a skylark? And doubtless
the good doctor would lay a portentous finger on his lip and
ejaculate a ponderous and all-knowing “ah!” which might
settle the question so far as he was concerned, but which
might leave us in some doubt as to the validity of his prepos-
terous conclusions. But these men of science, in their valiant
attempts to prove something, stop at nothing. “ They show
a want of knowledge that must be the result of years of study,”
Oscar Wilde once sapiently remarked.

Poets, I believe, are more closely In touch with the spirit
of grimalkin, the soul of a pussy-cat, than either prose writers
or painters. They should be, because poets are mystics, at
least the great poets are mystics, speaking like the oracle or
the clairvoyant, words that come, of which they themselves
may not even understand the meaning. And the poet knocks
at gates which sometimes open wide, disclosing gardens to
which entrance is denied to those who stumble to find truth in

247

The Tiger in the House

reason and experience. Faith is needed to comprehend the
cat, to understand that one can never completely comprehend
the cat.

Puss rambles in and out of verse from an early date.
Doubtless Babylonians, Zends, and shaggy Patagonians wrote
poems about the cat. She appears in Greek poetry and early
Persian. Lope de Vega is reported to have celebrated her
bewildering beauty and Saadi refers to her in his “ Gulistan.”
Tasso indited a sonnet to her. One Domenico Balestieri in
1741 published in Milan a volume entitle4 “Tears upon the
death of a cat,” ^ in which two hundred and eighty-five pages
in several languages are consecrated to the memory of a single
tabby.

English poets have not neglected the cat; nor on the whole
have they been unkind to her, but generally they have been
quite content to describe her as a hunter of rats and mice and
birds, as a fireside companion, or as a plaything. By a curi-
ous irony the cat denotes the commonplace as often as she does
the mystic. She is the complement of the peasant’s hearth
and the shop-keeper’s friend, just as surely as she is the astrol-
oger’s apprentice and the familiar of the pythoness.
Goldsmith strikes this common chord of C major when he
writes :

Around, in sympathetic mirth,

Its tricks the kitten tries;

The cricket chirrups on the hearth.

The cracklinff fagot flies.

Robert Herrick sounds the same harmony:

A cat I keep.

That plays about my house.

Grown fat with eating •

Many a miching mouse.

1 I have found frequent references to this work, but have never seen the
book itself.

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The Cat and the Poet

Another example from this writer is prettier :

Yet can thy humble roof maintaine a quire
Of singing crickets by thy fire;

And the brisk mouse may feast herself e with crumbs.

Till that the green-eyed kitling comes.

Even Gautier and Heine, to whom cats were something of
a religion, 2 devoted passages in their poems to the domestic
possibilities of puss.

Seldom, indeed, until recently at least, has there seemed
anything mysterious about the cat to the English poet; to his
unobservant eyes she has appeared as matter-of-fact an animal
as the cow or the dog, although differing in external appear-
ance and character from either. It is only in the late nine-
teenth and the twentieth century that cat-worship has been
revived in England and that the strange complexities of her
occult nature have come to be admired again.

One of the earliest of the English bards, John Skelton, treats
her harshly, but he is writing a poem about a sparrow. Nat-
urally, therefore, he calls down vengeance.

On all the whole nacyon
Of cattes wylde and tame;

God send them sorowe and shame!

That cat especyally
That slew so cruelly
My lytell pretty sparowe.^

Les pachas aiment les tigres; moi j’aime les chats,” wrote Theophile Gau-
tier; ” les chats sont les tigres des pauvres diables. Hormis les chats, je
n’aime rien. . .

® Canning probably wrote the first bird-poem in which the sympathy lies
with the cat;

Tell me, tell me, gentle Robin,

What is it sets thy heart a-throbbing?

Is it that Grimalkin fell

Hath killed thy father or thy mother,

Thy sister or thy brother.

Or any other?

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The Tiger in the House

Chaucer writes:

For whoso wolde senge a cattes skyn,

Thenne wolde the cat wel dwellen in hir in;

And if the cattes skyn be slyk and gay.

She wol nat dwelle in house half a day.

But forth she wol, er any day be dawed.

To shewe hir skyn, and goon a-caterwawed.

The characters of Shakespeare frequently allude to the cat,
but none of them seems to be her friend. We can bear

A harmless necessary cat,

which is not entirely a gnostic view, from Shylock, and An-
tonio’s

For all the rest.

They’ll take suggestion as a cat laps milk,

in The Tempest has become a commonplace of English speech.
Lady Macbeth says.

Letting I dare not wait upon I would.

Like the poor cat i" the adage,

and the picture of feline caution is an accurate one, but Romeo
cries.

Every cat and dog.

And little mouse, every unworthy thing,

which is paralleled by the remark of Cornelius in Cymbeline,

Creatures vile, as cats and dogs.

Of no esteem.

Tell me but that.

And I’ll kill the cat.

But stay, little Robin, did you ever spare
A grub on the ground or a fly m the air?

No, that you never did. I’ll swear ;

So I won’t kill the cat;

T hat’s flat.

Raoul Gineste also takes the part of the cat in Le Serin.

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The Cat and the Poet

We may at least be glad to find dogs included in this diatribe.
Lysander shouts at Hermia:

Hang offj thou cat, thou burr: vile thing, let loose!

And Bertram says of Parolles in All’s JVell:

I could endure anything before but a cat, and now he's a cat to me,

and later:

He is more and more a cat,
and again:

He's a cat still.

It Is only in Macbeth that one gets a portent of the mystery
of the cat; only in Macbeth that Shakespeare seems to realize
the relation of puss to the occult.

Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed

is the line that saves Shakespeare.

Pope refers casually to the practice, prevalent then as now,
of leaving money to cats, in the line,

endow a college or a cat.

George Tuberville wishes he were a cat so that he could
protect his mistress from mice:

The Mouse should stand in Feare,

So should the squeaking Rat;

All this would I doe if I were
Converted to a Cat.

The fabulists, of course, regard all animals from the moral
point of view. Under the circumstances the cat may be said
to come off well. In Edward Moore’s fable, “ The Farmer,
the Spaniel, and the Cat,” the dog complains because the cat is
given food:

251

The Tiger in the House

They only claim a right to eat.

Who earn by services their meat.

Whereupon, in the very best Rollo book style :

I own {with meekness Puss reply’d)

Superior merit on your side;

Nor does my breast with envy swell.

To find it recompens'd so well;

Yet I, in what my nature can.

Contribute to the good of man.

Whose claws destroy the pilfring mouse?

Who drives the vermin from the house?

Or, watchful for the lab'ring swain.

From lurking rats secures the grain?

From hence, if he awards bestow.

Why should your heart with gall o’ erflow?

Why pine tny happiness to see.

Since there’s enough for you and me?

Thy words are just, the Farmer cry’d.

And spurn’d the snarler from his side.

Gay wrote three fables about the cat and in two of them, “ The
Rat-catcher and the Cats ” and “ The Man, The Cat, the
Dog, and the Fly,” he treats of puss from the same utilitarian
point of view. But in “ The Old Woman and Her Cats,” in
which he touches on the subject of witchcraft, he plunges a
little deeper into his theme:

A wrinkled Hag, of wicked fame.

Beside a little smoky flame

Sat hov’ring, pinch’d with age and frost;

Her shrivell’d hands, with veins embossed.

Upon her knees her weight sustain.

While palsy shook her crazy brain:

She mumbles forth her backward pray’rs.

An untam’d scold of fourscore years.

About her swarm’d a num’rous brood
Of Cats, who lank with hunger mew’d.

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The Cat and the Poet

Teas’d with their cries j her choler grew.

And thus she sputter’d: Hence, ye crew.

Fool that I was, to entertain

Such imps, such fiends, a hellish train!

Had ye been never hous’d and nurs’d,

I, for a witch, had ne’er been curs’d.

To you I owe, that crowds of boys
tv orry me with eternal noise;

Straws laid across, my pace retard;

The horse-shoe’s nail’d {each threshold’s guard) ;

The stunted broom the wenches hide.

For fear that I should up and ride.

Tabby’s reply is the wail of all the cats of the middle ages:

’Tis infamy to serve a hag;

Cats are thought imps, her broom a nag;

And boys against our lives combine.

Because, ’tis said, your cats have nine.

In Peter Pindar’s “ Ode to Eight Cats ” the poet wishes
he too were a cat for somewhat the same reason that Walt
Whitman exalts the animals, because they do not need lawyers
and preachers and furniture. While these stanzas are, like
so much of English verse concerning puss, purely external,
they have humour and a certain limited kind of observation
and as they are not to be found in the other cat books or
anthologies I will quote them here, omitting the four moraliz-
ing verses :

AN ODE TO EIGHT CATS
Belonging to Israel Mendez, a Jew

Scene: The street in a country town; Time: Midnight; The

poet at his chamber window.

Singers of Israel, O ye singers sweet,

tVho with your gentle mouths from ear to ear.

Pour forth rich symphonies from street to street.

And to the sleepless wretch, the night endear!

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The Tiger in the House

LOj in rny shirt, on you these eyes I fix.

Admiring much the quaintness of your tricks!

Your friskings, crawlings, squalls, I much approve;

Your spittings, pawings, high-raised rumps,

Swelled-tails and Merry-Andrews jumps.

With the wild ministrelsy of rapturous love.

How sweetly roll your gooseberry eyes.

As loud you tune your amorous cries.

And loving, scratch each other black and blue!

No boys in wantonness now bang your backs.

No curs, nor fiercer mastiffs, tear your flax.

But all the moonlight world seems made for you.

* * * * *

Good gods! Ye sweet love-chanting rams!

How nimble are you with your hams

To mount a house, to scale a chimney top.

And peeping from that chimney hole.

Pour in a doleful cry, the impassioned soul.

Inviting Miss Grimalkin to come up:

Who, sweet obliging female, far from coy.

Answers your invitation note with joy.

And scorning "midst the ashes more to mope;

Lo! borne on Love’s all-daring wing
She mounteth with a pickle-herring spring.

Without the assistance of a rope.

Dear mousing tribe, my limbs are waxing cold —

Singers of Israel sweet, adieu, adieu!

I do suppose you need now to be told

How mnch I wish that I was one of you.

No feline poem is better known than Thomas Gray’s “ On
the death of a favourite cat, drowned in a tub of gold-fishes,”
but Gray again only deals in externals. “ Demurest of the
tabby kind,” the pensive Selima is drawn with the broadest
strokes. The poem is graceful but it can be said of it that it

254

The Cat and the Poet

scarcely scratches the surface of the subject of cats. William
Cowper’s two cat poems, in one of which there occurs a catas-
trophe * much like that around which “ The Bride of the
Mistletoe ” is built, are still external but they, too, are very
pleasing. The picture of the kittens playing with the forked
tongue of the viper is charming and “ The Retired Cat ” al-
most tastes of the mystic flavour. There is something in-
tensely feline in the description of the poet’s cat:

Sometimes her ease and solace sought
In an old empty watering-pot;

There wanting nothing save a fan.

To seem some nymph in her sedan,

A pparelVd in exactest sort.

And ready to be borne to Court.

One of Matthew Prior’s poems to a cat is a version of the
Aesop Fable which relates the story of the cat who was
changed into a woman by Venus. His “ Lines on a Reason-
able Affliction,” which Graham R. Tomson includes in her col-
lection, scarce refer to the cat at all. I certainly shall not
linger over the sentimental and silly verses which Rumpel-
stilzchen and Hurlyburlybuss are alleged to have written to
Robert Southey. No cat, it would seem, could write so ill.
Nor need one stop to admire Tom Hood’s verses, ” Puss and
Her Three Kittens.” But Joanna Baillie seems to have been
trembling on the verge of the discovery of the psychic nature
of the cat. In her poem she describes a kitten at play with
exquisite felicity and she asks:

Whence hast thou then, thou witless Puss,

The magic power to charm us thus?

Is it, that in thy glaring eye.

And rapid movements we descry.

While we at ease, secure from ill,

^ Frangois Coppee once remarked that all cats die a tragic death. “ There is
not,” he said, “a single case on record of a cat who died in his bed!”

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The Tiger in the House

The chimney corner snugly fill,

A lion darting on his prey?

A tiger at his ruthless play?

Wordsworth sings of a “ kitten’s busy joy.” Shelley was
surely not inspired when he wrote his lines on an esurient cat
and Keats’s sonnet, in the nature of a query to his cat, is very
unimaginative. The poet is content to ask how many frays
puss has fought, how many rats and mice he has captured.
A subtler artist would have sought more occult information,
asked concerning the temples of the Nile and the Witches’
Sabbath, asked of Cardinal Wolsey and the Archbishop of
Taranto, asked of Victor Hugo and Madame Deshoulieres
and the doors of Isaac Newton. Landor reasons with his
Chinchinillo in the matter of pigeon-slaughter, apparently with
small result:

I doubt his memory much, his heart a little.

And in some minor matters {may I say it?)

Could wish him rather sager.

This from the man who spoiled a cook and a bed of violets
simultaneously! C. S. Calverley’s “Sad Memories” are an
impertinent invasion of the sacred arcane mysteries of the cat
mind, about which the poet, of course, proves that he knows
nothing. We need not pause over Tennyson’s verses, “ The
Spinster’s Sweet-arts ” but pass on to the modern writers who,
it would seem, are more conversant with the mystic essence of
the cat than their earlier brethren.® Mr. A. C. Benson, to be

® Isaac Newton had a large hole cut in his door for his old cat and a small
one for his kittens! These cat doors, which afford easy egress or ingress to
the animal, still exist in some Andalusian towns, according to Somerset
Maugham (“The Land of the Blessed Virgin”; Heinemann; 1905). Their
disappearance in England and France is proof, according to Miss Repplier,
of the advanced esteem in which the cat is held, for now people open and
shut doors for her when she asks to get in or out.

® This is probably due to French influence. The modern English poets may
have studied Baudelaire.

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The Cat and the Poet

sure, falls in with the dog-lovers in his apostrophe to the pan-
ther of the hearth :

Cold eyeSj sleek skin, and velvet paws.

You win my indolent applause.

You do not win my heart.

We really must go back to Matthew Arnold, for it is in his
picture of Atossa that the cat enters her great period in Eng-
lish poetry. Here the poet almost achieves a French under-
standing of the cat:

Cruel, but composed and bland.

Dumb, inscrutable, and grand;

So Tiberius might have sat.

Had Tiberius been a cat.

Mr. Swinburne’s

Stately, kindly, lordly friend.

Condescend

Here to sit by me, and turn
Glorious eyes that smile and burn.

Golden eyes, lovers lustrous meed.

On the golden page I read.

is perhaps a little sentimental, but Richard Garnett’s “ Mari-
gold ” is magnificent:

She moved through the garden in glory, because
She had very long claws at the end of her paws.

Her back was arched, her tail was high,

A green fire glared in her vivid eye;

And all the Toms, though never so bold.

Quailed at the martial Marigold.

But no other English poet, it seems to me, has so well sounded
the depths of cat nature, so well suggested the soul of the
mystic mammal, as Graham R. Tomson (Mrs. Rosamund
Ball Marriott-Watson) in her three verses. The plea to the
puss in another world:

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The Tiger in the House

Nor, though Persephone's own Puss you be.

Let Orcus breed oblivion — of me,

is irresistibly appealing; so is the description in “ Arsinoe’s
Cats ” :

A little lion, small and dainty sweet
{For such there be!)

With sea-grey eyes and softly stepping feet.

The sonnet to the Chat Noir is Baudelairean in its harmonies,
and although like the others, it has been often quoted, I make
no apology for reprinting it:

Half loving-kindliness and half disdain.

Thou comest to my call serenely suave.

With humming speech and gracious gestures grave.

In salutation courtly and urbane:

Yet must I humble me thy grace to gain —

For wiles may win thee, but no arts enslave.

And nowhere gladly thou abidest save

Where naught disturbs the concord of thy reign.

Sphinx of my quiet hearth! who deignst to dwell
Friend of my toil, companion of mine ease.

Thine is the lore of Ra and Rameses;

That men forget dost thou remember well.

Beholden still in blinking reveries.

With sombre sea-green gaze inscrutable.

William Watson’s “ great Angora . . . throned in monumen-
tal calm . . . immobile, imperturbable,” too, sticks in the
memory.

American poets do not all come off very well in their cat
poems. Bret Harte’s ” Miss Edith’s Modest Request ” is not
inspired; it might have been written by anybody for any news-
paper. Nor can I find much to delight me in the “ Two
Cats ” of Ella Wheeler Wilcox, although the lady herself

258

(

“ A LITTLE LION. SMALL AND DAINTY SWEET ”
From a copyright photograph by Harriet V. Furness

The Cat and the Poet

was a passionate felinophile. Her mother treated cats rudely
and used to throw them out of doors at night. Little Ella
protested: “Put him out a-walkin’, mama, put him out

a-walkin’.” Somewhat later in life Mrs. Wilcox (then Miss
Wheeler) wrote a song called, “ Mother, Bring my Little
Kitten.” “ It was supposed,” Mrs. Wilcox explains in her
priceless book, “ The Worlds and I,” “ to be a dying child
asking for her pet, which she feared she might not meet in
heaven. It was mere sentimental stuff, of no value, of course.
But the ‘ Funny Man’ on the Waukesha Democrat (I think
that was the paper) poked much fun at me, and said I ought
to follow my song with another, ‘ Daddy, do not drown the
puppies.’ ” Mrs. Wilcox took the suggestion as a cat laps
milk and published the new poem in one of the Wisconsin
papers. The refrain ran as follows:

Sav6j ohj save one puppy j daddy.

From a fate so dark and grim —

Save the very smallest puppy —

Make an editor of him.

Mrs. Wilcox adds that her brother Ed liked these lines better
than any others she ever wrote. I am inclined to believe that
Ed exhibited excellent literary judgment.

However I do not wish to speak unkindly of journalistic
verse. I found the following stanzas by Miriam Teichner in
a newspaper and, as they touch a phase of our subject not
elsewhere dealt with in this volume, I should like to repro-
duce them. Any one who has eaten in these restaurants (and
which of us has not?) will recall

THE TABLE D’HOTE CAT

Now are we come on troublous times.

So I will sing unruffled rhymes.

This one is written, hoping that
The table d'hbte-ish pussy cat,

259

The Tiger in the House

That creature base and unrefined.

Will for the nonce, distract your mind.

Imagine lives {the cat boasts nine)

Spent in the flow of thin red wine!

See where the cocktail-sired bon mot
Inspires the luckless beast with woe.

Hedged in a brush of table legs.

See how she dodges, skulks and begs
For chicken bones, or thin and pale.

The sardine’s limp anaemic tail.

It’s wrong — all wrong. That cat should be
Out scouring alleys, blithe and free,

A tiny lion, jungle wise.

Or dreaming with ecstatic eyes
Before a homey hearth. But here
In this too hectic atmosphere
How must all life seem stale and flat!

Pity the table d’hote-ish cat.

In “ Feline Philosophy by Thomas Cat,” Walter Leon Hess
in fifty “ caterwauls ” has written a long epic in free verse.
There is little about the cat in these pages, however; Thomas
tells the sordid story of his masters. But the following lines
have point :

How lucky to be a cat
Free to accept or — refuse
What is offered!

Oliver Herford’s drawings are perhaps more important
than his verses, but he occasionally writes some very charm-
ing lines. This paraphrase, for example, is delightful:

Kittens, you are very little.

And your kitten bones are brittle,

If you’d grow to Cats respected.

See your play be not neglected.

260

The Cat and the Poet

Smite the Sudden Spool, and spring
Upon the Swift Elusive String,

Thus you learn to catch the wary
Mister Mouse or Miss Canary?

The ending is quite terrible:

But the Kittencats who snatch

Rudely for their food, or scratch.

Grow to Tomcats gaunt and gory, —

Theirs is quite another story.

Cats like these are put away
By the dread S.P.C.A.

Or to trusting Aunts and Sisters
Sold as sable Muffs and IV risters.

“ The Whole duty of Kittens ” should be engraved in every
kitten’s mind:

When Human Folk at Table eat,

A Kitten must not mew for meat.

Or jump to grab it from the Dish,

(Unless it happens to be fish).

And this puts the question very neatly:

To Someone very Good and Just,

Who has proved worthy of her trust,

A Cat will sometimes condescend —

The Dog is Everybody’s friend.

One of the most celebrated of the German poets devoted
many of his poems to cats, a great many more than the three
that Baudelaire wrote to prove to an Italian pedant that he
was crazy. And the eccentric German Jew seems to have been
attached to the little animal. I have found a description of

’’ This and the following two examples are from “ The Kitten’s Garden of
Verses”; Charles Scribner’s Sons; 1911.

261

The Tiger in the House

the poet’s days in the garret of his uncle “ The only creature
living there being a fat Angora cat that was not especially
given to cleanliness and that only rarely with her tail wiped
the dirt and cobwebs away from the old rubbish that was
stored there. . . . But my heart was still in the bloom of
youth. . . . Everything appeared to me in a fantastic light,
and the old cat herself seemed to me like a bewitched princess,
who might perhaps suddenly be set free from her animal
shape, and show herself in her former beauty and splen-
dour. . . . But the good old fancy times are over; cats re-
main cats.”

Another German poet, Joseph Victor von Scheffel, has
made Hiddigeigei, the Tom Cat, one of the principal figures
of his long poem, ” Der Trompeter von Sakkingen.” Aside
from his dramatic and philosophic importance in this romance,
Hiddigeigei has thirteen songs. A restaurant in Capri has
been named in his honour.

But it has remained for the French poet to capture the
grace, the idle charm, the magnificence, and the essential mys-
tery of the cat; and the French poet has seldom failed to do
so. The fabulists, to be sure, have not been so unerring.
However, they have followed the folklore suspicion that the
cat is a hypocrite and a successful rogue rather than the Eng-
lish fabulists’ idea that puss is a Sunday School teacher. In
Florian’s Fable of the ” Two Cats,” the lazy old matou says
to the lean laborious tom,

Voj le secret de reussir,

C’est d’etre adroit, non d’etre utile

This may be true. Florian’s more celebrated Fable con-
cerns the “ Cat and the Mirror.” After puss has examined
both sides of the glass in an effort to find the other cat he
settles back, quite satisfied.

8 T. W. Evans; “ The Memoirs of Heinrich Heine”; George Bell and Sons;
London; 1884.

262

The Cat and the Poet

Que m’importe, dit-il, de percer ce myst'eref
Une chose que notre esprit,

A pres un long travail, nentend ni ne saisit,

Ne nous est jamais necessaire?

This Is true feline philosophy.

La Fontaine makes the cat out a monster, a rogue, a Till
Eulensplegel, but he has been praised for doing so. “ Ob-
serve,” writes M. Feuillet de Conches to Champfleury, “ how
thorough is La Fontaine’s knowledge of the cat. Romin-
agrobis is not Rodllardus. La Fontaine has painted the cat
as he studied it, under all Its aspects, and with the skill of a
master. La Fontaine is the Homer of cats. And pray, what
was La Fontaine himself, if not a genuine cat? That he
loved the owners of the house I am glad to believe, but he
loved the house itself still more. He was always curling him-
self up in it again. His answer to M. d’Hervart: ‘ I was

going there! ’ is a cat’s answer.” The Duchesse de Bouillon,
a true lover of cats, asked her friend. La Fontaine, to give her
a copy of every fable In which her favourite animal appeared.
M. Feuillet de Conches found these precious autographs In
an old garret among some ancient papers of the de Bouillon
estate.

The French precieuse, Madame Deshoulieres, amused her-
self by writing a long series of poems in epistolary form be-
tween her cat, Grisette, and other cats, between her cat, Gri-
sette, and Cochon, the dog of M. le Marechal le Due de
Vivonne, who was the brother of Madame de Montespan.
Passages from these poems are delightful.

® There is a well-known and oft-repeated story of a cat who, for the first time
seeing his own reflection in the mirror, tried to fight it. Meeting with resis-
tance from the glass, he next ran behind the mirror. Not finding the object
of his search, he again came to the front, and while keeping his eyes delib-
erately fixed on the image, felt around the edge of the glass with one paw,
whilst with his head twisted around to the front he assured himself of the
persistence of the reflection. He never afterwards condescended to notice the
mirror. . . . My cats never pay the slightest attention to mirrors.

263

The Tiger in the House

Tata, the cat of Madame la Marquise de Montgras writes
of Grisette :

Jamais chatte ne fut si belle;

Jamais chatte ne me pint tant,

and Dom Gris, the cat of Madame la Duchesse de Bethune, in
his love letter explains:

Tout matou que je suis, j'ai Vame delicate.

Mittin, the cat of Mademoiselle Bocquet, charmingly de-
scribes Grisette:

0?i ne vous vit jamais souiller vos pattes,

Innocentes et delicates,

Du sang des souris et des rats.

En amour vous avez les plus belles manieres;

Vous n'allez point, par des cris scandeleux,

Promener sur les toits la lionte de vos feux,

Ni vous livrer aux matous des gouttieres.

And Mittin’s description of himself is irresistible:

J’appuie adroitement ma patte sur les bras
De ceux qui sont assis a table.

Si leur faim est inexorable,

Ma faim ne se rebate pas;

Et, d’un air toujours agreable,

Je tire du moins charitable
Les morceaux les plus delicats,

Qu a la fin il me tend d'une main liberale.

Enfin, quoique je sots un chat des mieux nourris,

Je chasse d’une ardeur qui n eut jamais d’egale.

Nul matou mieux que moi ne chasse dans Paris;

Et je pretends quun jour mon amour vous regale
D’une hecatombe de souris.^^

Freely translated as “Grisette Dines” the first few lines of this excerpt
from a long poem appear in Miss Repplier’s anthology, “ The Cat.” But, it will
be observed that it is not Grisette who dines.

264

“ JAMAIS CHATTE NE FUT SI BELLE,
JAMAIS CHATTE ME PLUT TANT ”

From a photograph by Harriet V. Furness

The Cat and the Poet

Beranger, too, is interested in the cat in love. He writes
of the amorous female :

Tu reveilles ta maitresse,

M.inette, par tes long cris;

Est-ce la faim qui te pressef
Entends-tu quelque souris?

Tu veux fair de ma chambrette.

Pour courir je ne sais oil;

Mia-mia-ou: que veut Minettef
Mia-mia-ou! cest un matou.^^

But of all Frenchmen, Baudelaire came the nearest to ap-
preciating and expressing the esoteric nature of cats; he felt
that they represented a phase of the occult science. His three
poems to cats are mystic masterpieces and no other poet has
been able to create works to rival them. Of Baudelaire’s
love for pussies, Gautier writes: “ As I am speaking of the

individual tastes and little eccentricities of the poet, let me say
that he adored cats, who like him, are fond of perfumes, and
easily thrown into a kind of ecstatic epilepsy by the smell of
valerian. He loved these charming creatures, tranquil, mys-
terious, and gentle, with their electric shudderings, whose
favourite attitude is the elongated pose of sphinxes, who seem
to have transmitted their secrets to them. They wander
about the house with velvet tread, like the genius of the place,
or come and sit upon the table near the writer, keeping com-
pany with his thought, and gazing at him out the depths of
their dark golden pupils with an intelligent tenderness and a
magic penetration. It might almost be said that cats divine

One might devote a volume to the study of the love-habits of the cat,
which are cruel and fascinating. It is diverting to know that once mating is
accomplished the male and female quarrel, thus setting an excellent example
that is followed generally by the human race. In the mating process, some-
times with blooded cats a matter of days, both male and female often refuse
all food! The soft purring call of the female is more amorous than the cooing
of a dove.

265

The Tiger in the House

the idea which descends from the brain to the tip of the pen,
and that, stretching out their paws, they wished to seize it in
its passage. They like silence, order, and quietness, and no
place is so proper for them as the study of a man of letters.
With admirable patience they wait until he has finished his
task, emitting a guttural and rhythmic purr as a sort of ac-
companiment to his work. From time to time they gloss with
their tongue some ruffled spot in their fur, for they are
clean, fastidious, coquettish, and permit no irregularities
in their toilet, but always In a calm and discreet way,
as If they were afraid to distract or annoy. Their
caresses are tender, delicate, silent, and have nothing in
common with the noisy and gross petulance which belongs
to dogs, upon whom nevertheless, has been bestowed all the
sympathy of the vulgar. All these merits were fully appreci-
ated by Baudelaire, who has more than once addressed to cats
some fine bits of verse, — the ‘ Fleurs du Mai ’ contains three,
— and often he has them flitting across his compositions as
characteristic accessories. Cats abound in the verse of Baude-
laire as dogs in the paintings of Paolo Veronese, and are a
kind of signature. I should add that among the pretty crea-
tures, so pleasant by day, there is a nocturnal side, mysterious
and cabalistic, which is very seductive to the poet. The cat
with his phosphoric eyes, which serve him as lanterns, and
sparks flying from his back, fearlessly haunts the darkness,
where he encounters wandering phantoms, sorcerers, alche-
mists, necromancers, resurrectionists, lovers, pickpockets, as-
sassins, drunken patrols, and all those obscene larvae which
sally forth and do their work only at night. He has the
air of having heard last Sunday’s sermon, and readily rubs
himself against the lame leg of Mephistopheles. His sere-
nades under the balcony, his amours on the rooftops,
accompanied with cries like those of a strangled child,
lend him a passably satanIc aspect, which to a certain
point justifies the repugnance of diurnal and practical

266

The Cat and the Poet

minds, for whom the mysteries of Erebus have no charm.
But a Dr. Faust in his cell, encumbered with flasks and
instruments of alchemy, will like always to have a cat
for companion. Baudelaire himself was a voluptuous cat,
indolent, with velvety ways, and full of force in his fine sup-
pleness, fixing upon men and things a look of restless pene-
tration, free, voluntary, hard to hold, but without perfidy
withal, and faithfully attached to every one to whom he had
once given his independent sympathy.”

Jules Lemaitre, Francois Coppee, Paul Verlaine, Joseph
Boulmier, and Hippolyte Taine all wrote poems about cats.
Verlaine’s “ Femme et Chatte ” is nervous and electric and
should have been set to music by Debussy. We must thank
Lemaitre for the lines,

et je salue en toi, calme penseur.

Deux exquises vertus : scepticisme et douceur.

Taine’s twelve sonnets to his three cats. Puss, Ebene, and
Mitonne, were written in the fall of 1883 and were not in-
tended for publication. After his death, however, they ap-
peared in the Literary Supplement of the “ Figaro ” for
March ii, 1893, without the authorization of the writer’s
heirs and executors. They have not been included in his
collected works and as a result they are difficult to procure.
Such specimens of them as I have been able to find may be
placed with the very best cat poems. This one, for instance,
dedicated to Puss, is wholly pleasing:

L,e plahir, comme il vient; la douleur, s"il le faut.

Puss, vous acceptez tout, et le soleil la-haut,

Quand il finit son tour dans I’immensite bleue,

V ous volt, couchee en circle, au soir comme au matin,

Heureuse sans effort, rhiqnee au destin,

Lisser nonchalamment les polls de votre queue.

12 From Gautier’s preface to “Fleurs du Mai,” P. 33. (Calmann-Levy ;
Paris).

267

The Tiger in the House

Charles Cros’s lines are likewise adorable :

Chatte blanche, chatte sans tache,

Je te demande dans ces vers
Quel secret dort dans tes yeux verts,

Quel sarcasme sous ta moustache?

But the white cat without a spot refused to reply. Cats occa-
sionally have spoken in China, the South of France, or Alice’s
Wonderland, but never for the purpose of giving their secrets
away. Indeed one of the oldest affinities cats have with alche-
mists and philosophers is their capacity for keeping secrets.
Imagine a frank dog present at the discovery of the magnum
opus. “ Gold! Gold! ” murmurs the delighted alchemist, and
the dog, barking with delight, jumps on his master, upsetting
the crucible and retort and destroying the secret. But the cat
would gaze through his half-closed, sleepy eyelids, “ dumb,
inscrutable, and grand.”

Of the modern French writers Raoul Glneste and Alfred
Ruffin have devoted books of poems to cats and Lucie Delarue-
Mardrus has written much verse which shows that she has an
affinity with the mystic beast. The following lines were first
quoted (from manuscript) in “ Claudine s’en va.” I do
not know that they have appeared elsewhere.

POUR LE CHAT

Chat, monarque furtif, mysterieux et sage,

Sont-ils dignes, nos doigts encombres d’anneaux lourds,

De votre majeste blanche et noire, au visage
De pierrerie et de velours?

“ An intending magus shall be discreet and faithful; he shall never reveal
what he has been told by a spirit. Daniel was commanded to set a seal on
several matters; Paul was forbidden to reveal what he beheld in his ecstasy.
The importance of this ordination cannot be exaggerated.” Theosophia Pneu-
matica”; Frankfort; x686.
i*P. 47-

268

THE CAT AND THE ALCHEMYSTICAL CAULDRON

From a photograph by Harriet V, Furness

The Cat and the Poet

Votre grace s’ enroule ainsi qu’une chenille;

Vous eteSj au toucher^ plus brulant qu’un oiseau,

Et, seule nudite, votre petit museau

Est une fleur fraiche qui brille.

Vous avezj quoique rubanne comme un sachet,

De la ferocite plein vos oreilles noires,

Quand vous daignez crisper vos pattes peremptoires
Sur quelque inattendu hochet,

En votre petitesse apaisee ou qui gronde
Rale la royaute des grands tigres sereins;

Comme un sombre tresor vous cachez dans vos reins
Toute la volupte du monde . . .

Mais, pour ce soir, nos soins vous importent si peu
Que rien en votre pose immobile n abdique :

Dans vos larges yeux d’ or cligne un regard boudhique,

Et vous vous souvenez que vous etes un Dieu.

Madame Delarue-Mardrus has also written an apostrophe
to Maut, the goddess with the head of a catd® The goddess
responds with a “ surnaturel, formidable ronron:

” O vous, mes soeurs, je suis la chatte-jemme.

Je possede, de par ma the, plus qu’une dme,

Reconnaissez en moi votre animalite.

Adorez-moi! Je suis I’instinct et son mystere.

Je suis I’amour, le charme et la fatalite,

Tant qu’il demeurera des femmes sur la terre.

Gineste meets the cat in many moods. “ Conversion ” is
a satire on those who like animals when they find them useful.
“ A cat,” writes Margaret Benson, “ must either have beauty
and breeding, or it must have a profession.” Monsieur Prud’-
homme went further than this; he insisted, apparently, that
all cats should have a profession.

‘ Souffles de Tempete.’

269

The Tiger in the House

Monsieur Prud’homme a dit: Je natme pas le chat;

C^est un hre cruel et traitre, il egratigne;

Le chien, ami de I’homme, est, au contraire, digne
De toute man estime; il leche qui le bat.

Le chat, gourmand fieffe, ne leche que le plat,

O’ est un voleur subtil, un paresseux insigne,

Un animal d’humeur fantasque ou bien maligne,

Un coureur sans vergogne, un serviteur ingrat.

Or, void que Prud’homme est prh d’une tendresse
Subite pour le chat qu’il flatte, qu’il caresse,

Qu’il couche pres de lui, qu’il nourrit a gogo;

Sa concierge eclaira d’un mot son egoisme.

Affirmant que les chats prennent le rhumatisme;

Et sa personne est fort sujette au lombago.

Alfred Ruffin, too, has devoted an entire book to poems
about cats. The following lines from his “ Le Livre des
Chats” are entitled:

LE CHAT EXILE

Je ne me suis jamais senti fort attriste
Des pleurs que verse un roi sur la terre etrangere:
Ces gens-la regrettant bien plus la royaute
Que la simple patrie a nous autres si elide;

Mais un honnete chat banni de son foyer,

Un chat qui n’a jamais convoite de couronne,

Sur sa juste douleur suit mieux m’apitoyer.

Car je connais le prix de ce qu’il abandonne.

L’asile oil I’enchainait depuis des jeunes ans
Le doux et fort lien des libres habitudes,

Ces murs a le froler devenus caressants,

Ces fentes du plancher, objet de tant d’ etudes,

270

The Cat and the Poet

Ce toit ou s'asseyant il baillait pres du del,

Ces caves dont ses yeux eclairaient le mystere.

Tout cet immeuble enfin dont le maitre rdl
C’etait lui, bien plutbt que le proprietaire,

Voild ce quon lui prend! pour Quebec ou Chatou
Dans la planche ou I’ osier, une main assassine
Emballe miaulant I" infortune matou:

Entendez-vous gemir I’arbre quon deracinef

Ah! I’amour du pays, dont I’humaine raison
Arbore en nos drapeaux la noble idoldtrie,

C’est Vinstinctif amour du chat pour sa maison:

Les chats auraient sans Vhotnme invente la patrie!

Et I’ animal, au seuil de son logis nouveau
Vers des deux inconnus jetant sa plainte vaine,

Fournirait pour un cadre aussi poignant tableau
Qu Alighieri pleurant sur les bords de la Seine.

The Epilogue to this book, too, I feel that I must permit my
readers to enjoy:

Le chat est beau dans un salon,

II est beau dans une mansarde.

Beau sur les genoux de Ninon
Comme aux pieds d’une carnpagnarde ;

A son aise dans tout decor,

C’est un hbte aussi presentable
Sous des plafonds lambrisses d’or
Que sous les poutres d’une Stable;

Et tel minet qui vit le jour
Au fond d’une arriere-boutique ,

Des quon le produit a la cour
y parait un prince authentique.

271

The Tiger in the House

Mats le chat au regard des sots
Est marque de plus d’une tare,

Et le premier de ses defauts
C’est de nhre pas assez rare.

" Noble et beau, soit, mais si banal
Quon ne le vend pas, on le donnel
Souvent meme on jette au canal
Ses enfants dont ne veut personnel ”

Toujours d’ailleurs il s'est fait tort
Par exces de bon caractere:

11 est de trop facile abord,

Ce noble est trop egalitaire.

A ccueillant pour tons les habits.

Riche ou pauvre, qui veut V embrasse ;

Je crois meme que des bandits
II ne detourne pas sa face.

Mais il est en cela pareil,

Sur la terre ou sa grace abonde,

Au plus grand des rois, au Soleil
Qui luit gratis pour tout le monde!

It has happened, perhaps naturally enough, that some of the
best poems on cats have been inspired by death. When
Joachim du Bellay’s cat. Belaud, died in 1558, the poet wrote
a very long epitaph in honour of his little friend. It is a
lovely tribute :

C’est Belaud, mon petit Chat gris:

Belaud, qui fut par avanture
Le plus bel oeuvre que Nature
Fit one en matiere de Chats:

C’etoit Belaud, la mart aux Rats,

Belaud, dont la beaute fut telle.

Quelle est digne d’etre immortelle.

272

The Cat and the Poet

He describes the animal’s physical appearance, his character
and habits, at length. Here is a pretty passage :

Mon Dieu! quel passe-temps c’etoit
Quand ce Belaud vire-voltoit,

Folatre au tour d’ une pelotte?

Quel plaisir, quand sa tete sotie
Suivant sa queue en mille tours,

D"un ro 'uet imitoit le cours!

Ou quand assis sur le derriere
II s" en faisoit un jarretiere,

Et montrant I’estomac vein,

De panne blanche crespelu,

Sembloit, tant sa trogne etoit bonne,

Quelque Docteur de la Sorbonne!

Domenico Balestieri’s anthology of poems in several
languages devoted to the memory of a single cat is not avail-
able. George Huddesford’s mock-heroic “ Monody on the
Death of Dick, an Academical Cat,” is easier to examine.

Ye Rats, in triumph elevate your ears!

Exult, ye Mice! for Fate's abhorred shears
Of Dick's nine lives have slit the catguts nine;

Henceforth he mews 'midst choirs of Cats divine!

Thus Huddesford writes and, after describing the variety of
cats who mourn Dick’s fall he says:

Though no funereal cypress shade thy tomb.

For thee the wreaths of Paradise shall bloom.

There, while Grimalkin's mew her Richard greets,

A thousand Cats shall purr on purple seats.

E'en now I see, descending from his throne.

Thy venerable Cat, O Whittington!

The kindred excellence of Richard hail.

And wave with joy his gratulating tail.

There shall the worthies of the whisker d race
Elysian Mice o'er floors of sapphire chase,

273

The Tiger in the House

Midst beds of aromatic marum stray.

Or raptur’d rove beside the Milky Way.

Kittens, than eastern houris fairer seen.

Whose bright eyes glisten with immortal green.

Shall smooth for tabby swains their yielding fur.

And to their amorous mews, assenting purr; —

There, like Alcmena’s, shall Grimalkin s son
In bliss repose, — his mousing labours done.

Fate, envy, curs, time, tide, and traps defy.

And caterwaul to all eternity!

There is perhaps an unwonted strain of frivolity in these lines
which is not entirely lacking in the following:

Ci repose pauvre Mouton,

Que jamais ne fut glouton;

J’espere bien que le roi Pluton,

Lui donnera bon gite et crouton.

But the epitaph for the cat of Madame Lesdiguieres, inscribed
on his monument, is charming, wistful, and pathetic:

Ci-git une Chatte jolie:

La Maitresse qui naima rien,

L’aima jusques a la folk;

Pourquoi le dire? on le voit bien.

Francois de la Mothe le Vayer who, when he was not writing
of the most abstruse matters, found it agreeable to create
sonnets on cats, composed an epitaph for Marlemain, the
favourite cat of Madame la Duchesse du Maine, which has
been translated by Edmund Gosse.

Puss passer-by, within this simple tomb
Lies one whose life fell Atropos hath shred;

The happiest cat on earth hath heard her doom.

And sleeps for ever in a marble bed.

Alas! what long delicious days I’ve seen!

O cats of Egypt, my illustrious sires,

274

THE TOMB OF MADAME DE LESDIGUIERES’S CAT

Fro>n an engraring in Moncrif’s Les Chats

.r'

The Cat and the Poet

You who on altars, bound with garlands green, —

Have melted hearts, and kindled fond desires, —

Hymns in your praise were paid, and offerings too.

But Fm not jealous of those rights divine.

Since Ludovisa loved me, close and true.

Your ancient glory was less proud than mine.

To live a simple pussy by her side
Was nobler far than to be deified.

Ludovisa, of course, was the duchess.

These French epitaphs are filled with pity and tenderness
and almost a divine sympathy with cats. All the epitaphs
in English do not boast these qualities. We cannot, for
example, think too highly of Whittier’s effort:

Bathsheba: To whom none ever said scat.

No worthier cat
Ever sat on a mat
Or caught a rat:

Requies-cat.

Clinton Scollard’s elegy on Peter, aged twelve, is an ex-
tended expression of pity for the poet himself on his loss of
the “ king of mousers, who no longer rubs his velvet fur
against the poet’s trousers.” Vachel Lindsay’s ” Dirge for
a Righteous Kitten ” is better. Gray’s celebrated gold-fish
tub catastrophe may be taken as an epitaph in spirit and so
may Sir Frederick Pollock’s “ Tom of Corpus,” In a more
robust vein. Christina Rossetti wrote verses entitled ” On
the Death of a Cat, a friend of mine age ten years and a half.”
A more subtle example Is the following, which appeared in the
“London Star,” November 3, 1795, “imitated in English
from the Latin of Dr. Jortin:

Worn out with age and dire disease, a cat.

Friendly to all save wicked mouse and rat,

Fm sent at last to ford the Stygian lake.

And to the infernal coast a voyage make.

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Me Proserpine received and smiling said:

Be blessed within these mansions of the dead.

Enjoy among thy velvet-footed loves,

Elysian’s sunny banks, and shady groves! "

“But if I’ve well deserved {O gracious Queen),

If patient under sufferings I have been.

Grant me at least one night to visit home again.

Once more to see my home and mistress dear.

And purr these grateful accents in her ear:

‘ Thy faithful cat, thy poor departed slave
Still loves her mistress, e’en beyond the grave.’ ’’

The cat may be said to have a mystic affinity with the per-
fect circle, the symbol of mystery, without beginning and with-
out end. Through the centuries she is now worshipped or
adored, now cherished as an essential of the household, a
mouse-enemy. However man regards the cat does not affect
the attitude that animal has towards man, which remains
gently tolerant at best and aggressively feral at worst. The
poet, sometimes, has seized this superiority of the cat and
exalted it, perfumed it with exotic words, waved the Incense
of the grand phrase before It, and anointed it with the holy
oil of inspiration. The poet, alone, can feel the hallucina-
tion of the circle. However it is not of any poet I speak.
One poet alone, perhaps, has sufficiently comprehended the
true significance of the cat to give his comprehension form,
the poet of the “ Flowers of Evil.”

Dans ma cervelle se promcne,

Ainsi qu’en son appartement,

Un beau chat, fort, doux, ct charmant,

Quand il miaule, on I’entcnd a pcinc,

Tant son timbre est tendre et discret;

Mais que sa voix s’apaise ou gronde,

Elle est toujours riche et profonde,

C'est Id son charme et son secret.

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Chapter Twelve: Titerary Men Who

Have Toved Cats

Au lieu d’ un os rouge quen dtnant je te jette.

Si mon argent devait payer ce que tu vaux.

Oh! combien envers toi serait lourde ma dette,

Aimable inspirateur de mes plus chers travaux!

Alfred Ruffin.

Even in the dark ages the cat was the friend of the intelli-
gent man, for the sorcerers and alchemists were the philoso-
phers of the period and those who persecuted sorcerers and
cats were the philistines. In our day the cat is as essen-
tial to the literary workshop as he was formerly to the
alchemystical laboratory. French writers, especially, have
made a fetish of the soft and independent little fellow animal.
Hardly an author of distinction during the nineteenth century
in Paris who did not surround himself with harems of long-
haired Persian beauties. Prosper Merimee, Theophile
Gautier, Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire, Paul de Kock,
Andre Theuriet, Emile Zola, Joris Karl Huysmans, Jules
Lemaitre, Pierre Loti, Octave Mirbeau, and Anatole France
all loved cats. Those in this list who are yet alive still do
love them. Maupassant stands out as a solitary figure op-
posed to the cult, for I gather from his rather unsympathetic
essay ^ on cats that he neither understood nor cared for them.
The others revived cat-worship, for which there are sufficient
reasons. Dogs are noisy, restless, clumsy, and dirty. As
W. H. Hudson has remarked they are useful and therefore
should be relegated with other useful animals to their proper

1 “ Sur les Chats ” in the volume entitled, “ La Petite Roque.”

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The Tiger in the House

place in the stables and the fields.^ Two or three dogs about
the house are sufficient to distract the attention and to claim
one’s time, but it is possible to endure, nay to enjoy, the com-
panionship of seventeen or more pussies, especially if they
are aristocratic pussies. They keep themselves faultlessly
clean and have no odour. They walk about noiselessly.
Persian cats seldom mew and when they do their voices are
modulated like those of well-bred people. They offer a pleas-
ing exterior to the eye; their velvet backs invite caresses.
When a man is tired a cat does not excite his nerves; when
he is rested he can turn to puss for play. It is but fair to
state, however, that the cat has his own ideas about such
matters. “ When I play with my cat who knows whether
she diverts herself with me, or I with her! ” writes Montaigne

2 The dog with all his new propensities, remains mentally a jackal, above
some mammalians and below others; nor can he outlive ancient, obscene in-
stincts which become increasingly offensive as civilization raises and refines his
master man. How did our belief in the mental superiority of this animal come
to exist? Doubtless it came about through our intimacy with the dog, in the
fields where he helped us, and in our houses where we made a pet of him,
together with our ignorance of the true character of other animals. In the
Orient the dog is an unclean animal. His instincts still persist. He may be
shut up in an atmosphere of opopanax and frangipani for twelve hundred years
and he will love the smell of carrion still.

The moral of all this is, that while the dog has become far too useful for
us to think of parting with it — useful in a thousand ways, and likely to be
useful in a thousand more, as new breeds arise with modified forms and with
new unimagined propensities — it would be a blessed thing, both for man and
dog, to draw the line at useful animals, to put and keep them in their place,
which is not in the house, and to value them at their proper worth, as we do
our horses, pigs, cows, goats, sheep, and rabbits.

But there is a place in the human heart, the female heart especially, which
would be vacant without an animal to love and fondle, a desire to have some
furred creature for a friend . . . and this love is unsatisfied and feels itself
deprived of its due unless it can be expressed in the legitimate mammalian
way, which is to have contact with its object, to touch with the fingers and
caress. Fortunately such a feeling or instinct can be amply gratified without
the dog. W. H. Hudson in “ The Great Dog-Superstition.” Goethe was
among those who hated dogs and Mephistopheles appeared to Faust in the form
of a poodle.

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Literary Men Who Have Loved Cats

in an essay ^ vindicating natural theology from the objections
of some of his opponents. “ We entertain one another with
mutual follies, struggling for a garter; and if I have my time
to begin or to refuse, she also has hers. It is because I cannot
understand her language that we agree no better; and perhaps
she laughs at my simplicity in making sport to amuse her.”

It is perfectly possible (a fact which I have proved scores
of times myself) to work not only with a cat in the room, but
with a cat on one’s shoulder or in one’s lap. In a draughty
room, indeed, the cat makes a superior kind of paper-weight !
Cats, to be sure, love to play on tables with loose papers and
pens, but a little care will keep them from doing damage, and
how welcome is the soft paw tap on the pen with the look of
surprise that invariably follows, to the tired writer.

As an inspiration to the author I do not think the cat can
be over-estimated. He suggests so much grace, power, beauty,
motion, mysticism. The perfect symmetry of his body urges
one to achieve an equally perfect form. His colour and his
line alone would serve to give any imaginative creator material
for several pages of nervous description; on any subject, mind
you, not necessarily on the cat himself. As for his intelligence,
his occult power, they are so remarkable that I sometimes feel
convinced that true cat-lover authors aie indebted even more
deeply than they believe to “ cats of ebony, cats of flame ” for
their books. The sharp, but concealed claws, the contract-
ing pupil of the eye, which allows only the necessary amount
of light to enter, the independence, should be the best of models
for any critic; the graceful movements of the animal who
waves a glorious banner as he walks silently should stir the soul
of any poet. The cat symbolizes, indeed, all that a good
writer tries to put into his work. I do not wonder that some
writers love cats; I am only surprised that all writers do not
love cats.

There is another explanation for the almost general fasci-

^ “ Apologie de Raimond Sebond.”

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The Tiger in the House

nation the cat has for the literary man. Writers as a class
are irritable, temperamental, captious, and sensitive. They
find in the soft grace, the urbanity, the reserve and the dignity
of the cat exactly the softening qualities they require to smooth
the ruggedness of life. Indeed the cat is as nearly as possible
what many a writer would like to be himself.

Some writer’s cats have been celebrated so often that I see
small occasion for giving them much space in this volume.
Dr. Johnson’s Hodge, for instance, who ate oysters and an-
noyed Boswell. If it had not been, indeed, that Boswell was
by way of being ailurophobic, we should doubtless have heard
more about Hodge who was one of the good doctor’s joys.
Nor need we linger over Scott’s Hinse of Hinsefield, for a
fondness for cats came late in the life of the author of
“ Waverley,” at heart a dog-lover. But it is worth while to
note Scott’s account of his visit to the Archbishop of Taranto
at Naples, “ a most interesting old man, whose foible is a
passion for cats,” Sir Walter was delighted with the ecclesi-
astical pets. ” One of them,” he wrote in his journal, “ is a
superb brindled Persian, a great beauty, and a particular
favourite. I remember seeing at Lord Yarmouth’s house a
Persian cat,^ but not so fine as the Bishop’s.” Scott was not
the only traveller who described his meeting with these cats.
Sir Henry Holland, lamenting the death of his friend, the
Archbishop, wrote, “ His cat and the Archbishop sitting to-
gether as they generally did, made a picture of themselves, the
former looking the more austere theologian of the two.”
And I.ady Morgan’s report is irresistible : ” The first day we

had the honour of dining at the palace of the Archbishop of
Taranto at Naples, he said to me, ‘ You must pardon my pas-
sion for cats, but I never exclude them from my dining room
and you will find they make excellent company.’ Between the
first and second courses, the door opened, and several enor-

* In the early nineteenth century Persian cats were comparatively rare in
England.

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Literary Men Who Have Loved Cats

mously large and beautiful Angora cats were introduced by the
names of Pantalone, Desdemona, Otello, etc. They took
their places on chairs near the tables, and were as silent, as
quiet, as motionless, and as well behaved as the most hon-ton
table in London could require. On the Bishop requesting
one of the chaplains to help the Signora Desdemona, the but-
ler stepped to his lordship, and observed, ‘ My lord, la Sig-
nora Desdemona will prefer waiting for the roasts.’ ”

Steele makes delicate domestic allusions to puss in “ The
Tatler.” His first actions on arriving home were to stir his
fire and to stroke his cat. Night after night he sat between
her and a little dog. “ They both of them sit by my fire
every Evening and wait my return with Impatience; and, at my
entrance, never fail of running up to me, and bidding me
Welcome, each of them in its proper Language. As they have
been bred up together from Infancy, and have seen no other
Company, they have acquired each other’s Manners; so that
the Dog gives himself the Airs of a Cat, and the Cat, in several
of her Motions and Gestures, affects the Behaviour of the little
Dog.” Byron was lavish in his hospitality to animals. At
Ravenna at one time he had five cats, eight dogs, ten horses,
an eagle, a crow, a falcon, five peacocks, two guinea hens, and
an Egyptian crane. Shelley was appalled by these beasts
and birds but Byron found them all delightful. Miss Edge-
worth and the Brontes kept cats. Carlyle had a soot-black
kitten who begged tidbits from him at the table and ate them
on the floor to the annoyance of Mrs. Carlyle who, during an
absence, wrote to her maid, Jessie: “ As long as she attends

Mr. C. at meals (and she doesn’t care a sheaf of tobacco for
him at any other time) so long will Mr. C. continue to give
her bits of meat and driblets of milk, to the ruination of the
carpets and hearthrugs.” There is a familiar story about
Dickens and a kitten first called William, but later, for good
reasons, Williamina, who to attract the author’s attention,
persisted in putting out a candle by which he was reading.

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And a portrait exists of Mr. Gladstone reading with a cat on
his knee.

Jeremy Bentham, the apostle of utilitarianism, childless, and
wifeless, lived in his house in London, surrounded by piles of
books. Occasionally he was visited by admirers whom he
turned away or treated with rudeness. Madame de Stael, for
instance, sought an interview, and sent in her card. Charm-
ing Mr. Bentham wrote on it, “ Mr. Bentham has nothing to
say to Madame de Stael, and he is quite certain that Madame
de Stael can have nothing to say to him,” and sent it down to
her! But he adored his pussy-cats. His favourite was a cat
named Langbourne, who afterwards became Sir John Lang-
bourne, and still later the Reverend Sir John Langbourne,
D. D.

John Payne, the author of “ The Masque of Shadows ” and
the translator of Villon, was possessed of an Angora cat,
named Parthenopaeus, who was accustomed to leap on Payne’s
shoulders and coil himself half way round his neck. Horace
Walpole delighted in cats and Gray’s letter to him on the death
of a beloved beast has become a classic. In 1852 Thomas
Griffiths Wainewright, the writer-poisoner, the friend of Lamb,
of whom W. Carew Hazlitt and Oscar Wilde have written,
died of apoplexy with his cat beside him, his sole living com-
panion, “ for whom he had evinced an extraordinary affection.”
Enough, it would seem, has been written concerning Southey’s
cats and Matthew Arnold’s Atossa.

George Borrow had a deep affection for animals. One of
his biographers, Herbert Jenkins, says that his horse, Sidi
Habismilk, would come to a whistle and would follow him
about, and his two dogs and his cat would do the same. When
he went for a walk the dogs and the cat would set out with
him, but the cat would turn back after accompanying him for
about a quarter of a mile. When a favourite cat was so ill
that he crawled away to die in solitude. Borrow went in search
of him, and discovering the poor creature in the garden-hedge,

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Literary Men Who Have Loved Cats

carried him back into the house, laid him in a comfortable
place, and watched over him until he died. But his care of
the much persecuted “ ecclesiastical cat ” at Llangollen, re-
ferred to elsewhere in this volume, is the best evidence of his
warm feeling for pussies. Walter Pater, it seems, had two
long-haired Persians to grace his hearth and to sit at his table,
and Andrew Lang was a passionate felinophile. His black
cat, Mr. Toby, his grey Persian, Master of Gray, and the aban-
doned Gyp should go into any biographical dictionary of cats.

That strange intransigent genius, Samuel Butler, who,
aside from his own writings and the music of Handel, found
little in art to interest him, appears to have been fonder of cats
than he was of men, in this respect resembling Jeremy
Bentham. But he did not surround himself with exotic Per-
sians after the fashion of many another author. The common
cats of London were good enough for him, and the passages
in his Note-Books and letters which refer to this passion
are vibrant with interest. Early in 1873 Butler seems
to have presented his equally eccentric correspondent.
Miss Savage, with a cat, which she called after the name
Butler first gave to the pseudonymous author of “ The Fair
Haven.” “ I have named your cat ‘ Purdoe,’ a good name for
a cat,” Miss Savage writes March 10, 1873. “ I baptised it

with ink.” Miss Savage makes reference in other letters to
other pussies, Clara and Tybalt. Butler writes to her Septem-
ber 22, 1884, “ My cat is better, and though it looks old and
battered is not otherwise amiss. I am extremely sorry to hear
of your bereavement. Shall you cat again?” In Novem-
ber of the same year he writes, “ How is your cat? Mine is
so stupid. She does not even know how to catch rats and
mice. Our servant says she catches them by the tail, instead
of at the back of the neck. What is to be done with her? ”
Butler’s friend, Pauli, was in the habit of ringing the bell, if
he saw a cat sitting on the doorstep, so that the owner might
take the beast in. Butler was delighted with this idea and

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The Tiger in the House

once tried it himself, but made the mistake of waiting until
the servant opened the door when he explained why he had
rung, only to learn that the cat did not belong to these people
and that they had been trying very hard to get rid of it.
In the meantime Butler seems to have lost his own cat. He
writes to Miss Savage, “ Don’t offer me your cat. If my cat
does not come back I don’t mean to have a cat for some time.
Jones has a real love of a cat, and when my mice get bad I
will fetch it down for a day or two.” In his “ Note-Books ”
Butler records that Prince, Jones’s cat, once picked up a little
waif in the court and brought it home, ” and the two lay to-
gether and were much lovelier than Prince was by himself.”
It was this same Prince that caused a child who was playing
with him one day to exclaim, ” Oh! it’s got pins in its toes,”
an incident that the author used in “ The Way of All Flesh.”
By the fall of 1885 not only Miss Savage but Butler’s sister
seem to have been determined that he should ” cat again.”
He writes the latter on October 21, 1885, “No, I will not
have a Persian cat; it is undertaking too much responsibility.
I must have a cat whom I find homeless, wandering about the
court, and to whom, therefore, I am under no obligations.
There is a Clifford’s Inn euphemism about cats which the
laundresses use quite gravely: they say people come to this
place ‘ to lose their cats.’ They mean that, when they have
a cat they don’t want to kill and don’t know how to get rid of,
they bring it here, drop it inside the railings of our grass-plot
and go away under the impression that they have been ‘ losing ’
their cat. Well, this happens very frequently and I have
already selected a dirty little drunken wretch of a kitten to be
successor to my poor old cat. I don’t suppose it drinks any-
thing stronger than milk and water, but then, you know, so
much milk and water must be bad for a kitten that age — at
any rate it looks as if it drank; but it gives me the impression
of being affectionate, intelligent, and fond of mice, and I be-
lieve, if it had a home, it would become more respectable; at

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Literary Men Who Have Loved Cats

any rate I will see how it works.” It seems to have worked
well, for six months or so later we read that' the cat has be-
come a mother. As a wet-nurse Butler was a failure. He
writes to his sister in March 1886, ” My kittens came and alas,
went! One after another died for want of sufficient nourish-
ment. This being their mother’s first confinement, she had
forgotten to make the milk necessary to feed her offsprings,
and so one after another starved in spite of all. I could do.
I had found homes for three out of the four and was sorry to
lose them. They were exceedingly pretty while they lasted,
but none of them lived as long as four days. The cat fre-
quently came and told me that things were not going right, and
I soon found out what the matter was, but I could not do
anything.” Butler is perhaps the first and the last amateur
cat-fancier to find beauty in kittens three days old. As for
the lack of nourishment, probably he did not feed the mother
enough; in any case it never seems to have occurred to him
that kittens can be raised on a bottle as easily as human babies.
In October 1886 the cat became a mother again while he was
absent on a journey and he writes his sister that the kittens
are ” well and strong but as wild as little tigers through not
having been habitually caressed.” ^

Like Butler, George Moore prefers the occidental cat. His
cats, however, have not been waifs from Clifford’s Inn. Cats
appear now and again in his books and generally a generous-
sized tom cat wanders about his home in Ebury Street. One
of these is described in “ Salve,” ® “ a large, grey and af-
fectionate animal upon whom Jane, without the aid of a doctor,
had impressed the virtue of chastity, so successfully that he
never sought the she, but remained at home, a quiet, sober
animal that did not drink milk,' only water, and who, when

® These examples are from “Samuel Butler” by Henry Testing Jones; Mac-
millan and Co.; London; 1919, and “The Note-Books of Samuel Butler.”

® P. 25 ; English edition.

Many common cats are brought up on milk and they cannot be said to
dislike it, but no cat breeder would think of giving milk to his cat, and a

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The Tiger in the House

thrown up to the ceiling, refrained from turning round, con-
tent to curl himself into a ball, convinced that my hands would
receive him — an animal to whom I was so much attached that
I had decided to bring him with me in a basket; but a few
weeks before my departure he died of a stoppage in his en-
trails, brought about probably by a morsel of sponge fried
in grease — a detestable and cruel way of poisoning cats
often practised by porters. . . Moore and his Jane at-
tempted in every conceivable way to alleviate Jim’s sufferings,
“ but he neither ate nor drank and lay down stoically to die.
Death did not come to him for a long while; it seemed as if
he would never drop off, and at last, unable to bear the sight
of his sufferings any longer, Jane held his head in a pail of
water, and after a few gasps the trial of life was over. It
may have been that he died of the fur that he licked away
collecting in a ball in his entrails, and that there is no cause
for me to regret the sovereign given to the porter when the
great van drove up to my door to take away the bedroom and
kitchen furniture.” Some time later George Moore took an-
other cat into his family, a large black tom cat with green
eyes, who makes his appearance in an interview published in
the ” Fortnightly Review,” ® an interview which Moore later
worked into a chapter for “ Avowals.” For this is his famous
defence of censored literature, a defence which immediately
preceded his decision to publish his own books privately to
avoid all future arguments with the Comstocks and Sumners,
and this defence was originally made before the great black
tom cat of Ebury Street, who sat as judge in an arm-chair,
listening gravely, but with some astonishment, to his master’s
plea, blinked his green eyes and finally fell asleep. Fontenelle

Persian cat, brought up on meat, will not touch it. Frequently, therefore, they
die of starvation, when they are old and have lost their teeth. But a cat
without a carnivorous diet is a weak cadaverous cat. It may be mentioned here
that it is essential that prey be freshly killed. Cats will not eat carrion or stale
food of any kind.

* “ The Fortnightly Review”; October 1917.

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Literary Men Who Have Loved Cats

tried a similar experiment once, but with less success. He
rehearsed a discourse before his cat, but the animal refused
to listen and left his presence. Always talking, Fontenelle
followed him from room to room, upstairs and down, until at
length the cat escaped to the roof! ® But the great black
tom cat of Ebury Street is dead. “ I am sorry to tell you,”
Moore wrote me in December 1919, “ that my last cat was
run over, a dear cat, one of the most intelligent I have ever
had, who did not mind a cuff for jumping on the table, but
would not forgive you if you turned him down from your
knee.”

Theophile Gautier has written a book about his cats, his
black and white dynasties, but delightful as these pages are
they have been worn thread-bare by repetition and quotation.
No felinophile, however, who has thus far passed it by should
miss reading “ La nature chez elle et la menagerie intime.”
Pussies, exquisite or suffering, wander in and out of nearly all
of Pierre Loti’s books. “ La vie de deux chats ” is possibly
the most perfect prose yet dedicated to the charms of these
gentle beasts. You may read it in French, in translation, or
summarized or quoted in a dozen cat books. His studies of
cats in “ Reflets sur la route sombre ” are less familiar. How
charming, for example, is this: ” A cat is watching me. . . .

He is close at hand, on the table, and thrusts forward his dimly
thoughtful little head, in which some unwonted flash of intel-
ligence has just entered. Whilst servants or visitors have
been on the spot, he has scornfully kept out of the way, under
an armchair, for no other person than myself is allowed to
stroke his invariably immaculate coat. But no sooner does he
perceive that I am alone than he comes and sits in front of
me, suddenly assuming one of those expressive looks that are
seen from timxe to time In such enigmatical, contemplative
animals as belong to the same genus as himself. His yellow
eyes look up at me, wide open, the pupils dilated by a mental

®Moncrif: “ Les Chats,” P. 103.

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The Tiger in the House

effort to interrogate and attempt to understand: ‘Who are

you, after all?’ he asks. ‘Why do I trust you? Of what
importance are you in the world ? ’ In our ignorance of things,
our inability to know anything, how amazing — perhaps ter-
rifying— if we could but see into the curious depths of these
eyes and fathom the unknowable within the little brain hidden
away there. Ah ! if only for a moment we could put ourselves
in its place and afterwards remember, what an instantaneous
and definite solution — though no doubt terrifying enough
— we might obtain of the perplexing problem of life and
eternity !

“ And now he is about to sleep, maybe to dream, on this
table at which I am writing; he settles down as close to me
as possible, after stretching out his paw towards me two or
three times, looking at me as though craving permission to
leap on to my knees. And there he lies, his head daintily
resting on my arm, as though to say: ‘Since you will not

have me altogether, permit this at least, for I shall not dis-
turb you if I remain so.’

“ How mysterious is the affection of animals ! It denotes
something lofty, something superior in those natures about
which we know so little. And how well I can understand
Mohammed, who, in response to the chant of the muezzin sum-
moning him to prayers, cut off with a pair of scissors the hem
of his cloak before rising to his feet, for fear of disturbing
his cat, which had settled down thereon to sleep.”

Alexandre Dumas was an enormously prodigal and fecund
person. He wrote a monstrous lot; he lived a lot; he ate a
lot; his establishment was always crowded and among the
crowds of people played crowds of pets, which he has de-
scribed in ‘‘ Mes Betes.” The reader, however, will not carry
away from this book the impression that Dumas was especially
fond of animals, although there is a touching picture drawn of
the English pointer, Pritchard. The vultures, cats, monkeys,
and macaws about the place were mostly cared for by the

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Literary Men Who Have Loved Cats

gardener, Michel, who adored animals. Dumas was amused
by them, much as was Byron.

Chateaubriand, on the other hand, was a discerning admirer
of cats. Under all circumstances, he occupied himself with
cats, as an ambassador, as an exile, and at the close of his life
when he ruled over the literary world from the retirement of
Abbaye-aux-Bois. Champfleury finds him “ of all writers on
this theme, the best, the most enthusiastic.” ” Do you not
know some one, 7iear here” he asked his friend, Comte de
Marcellus, ” who is like a cat? I think myself, that our long
familiarity has given me some of his ways.” Space and Time
did not permit his friend to send him Huysmans, who is de-
scribed by Arthur Symons as looking like a cat,^“ or Walt
Whitman, of whom Edmund Gosse “ has said, ” If it be true
that all remarkable human beings resemble animals, then Walt
Whitman was like a cat — a great old grey Angora Tom,
alert in response, serenely blinking under his combed waves
of hair, with eyes inscrutably dreaming,” or La Fontaine or
Baudelaire. When he went on an embassy to Rome
Chateaubriand received a cat as a gift from the Pope. “ He
was called Micetto,” writes M. de Marcellus. ” Pope Leo the
Twelfth’s cat, which came into the possession of Chateau-
briand, could not fail to reappear in the description of that
domestic hearth where I have so often seen him basking.”
Chateaubriand has immortalized his favourite: “My com-

panion is a large grey and red cat, banded with black. He
was born in the Vatican, in the loggia of Raphael. Leo the
Twelfth reared him on a fold of his white robe, where I used
to look at him with envy when, as ambassador, I received my

“ ‘ He gave me the impression of a cat,’ some interviewer once wrote of
him; ‘courteous, perfectly polite, almost amiable, but all nerves, ready to shoot
out his claws at the least word.’ And indeed there is something of his favourite
animal about him. The face is grey, wearily alert with a look of benevolent
malice.” “ Figures of Several Centuries,” P. 270.

“‘‘Critical Kit-Kats,” P. 103; London; 1896.

See Pages 263 and 267.

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The Tiger in the House

audiences. The successor of Saint Peter being dead, I in-
herited the bereaved animal. He is called Micetto, and
surnamed ‘ the Pope’s cat,’ enjoying in that regard much con-
sideration from pious souls. I endeavour to soften his exile,
and help him to forget the Sistine Chapel, and the vast dome
of Saint Angelo, where far from earth, he was wont to take
his daily promenade.”

Barbey d’Aurevilly’s Demonette outlived her master and
was subsequently cared for by Louise Read. Her name was
Desdemona, “ Demonette to her intimate friends,” Barbey
used to explain. She was given to the writer-dandy in 1884
by Madame Constantin Paul, and he at once installed her as
the favourite in his home, even allowing her to sprawl on his
manuscript while he worked. She also sat by him with her
paws on the table at his meals, receiving the choicest morsels
from his hands. Leon Ostrowski made a sketch of this scene
which appeared in the “ Revue Illustree ” for January i, 1887.
“ Eyes of gold on a piece of black velvet thus Barbey de-
scribed her. When Spirito was born, Barbey cried, “ My
cat has made a misalliance!” But eventually he became
deeply attached to Spirito, who was infinitely more tender
than the Archduchess Demonette, as he sometimes called her.
At Valognes he had a cat-companion whom he called Grifette
but he missed the Archduchess and Spirito and he wrote,
“ How lovely Demonette with her black fur, this Mauritian
princess, would be here in this great yellow room (the disguise
of the brunettes) ! Alas I have not my cats, my nocturnal
companions, to caress.” After the death of Barbey, Demo-
nette could not be induced to leave his bed. An expression of
terror and fright shone from her eyes. Three days later four
kittens were born before their time, three of them dead; the
fourth tiny little beast seemed to inherit his mother’s despair.

Champfleury spent many agreeable hours discussing cats
with Prosper Merimee, who found cats excessively sensitive,
“ Memoires d’Outre Tombe.”

290

RENDEZ-VOUS DE CHATS

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Literary Men Who Have Loved Cats

a trait which he deplored, and exceedingly polite. “ In that,”
he said, “ the animal resembles well-bred persons.” In one
of his letters Merimee writes of iin vieux chat noir, parfaite-
ment laid, mats plein d’ esprit et de discretion. Seulement il
n’ a eu que des gens vulgaires et manque d’ usage.” Champ-
fleury also describes Victor Hugo and his cat: “ It takes an

essentially feminine and poetic nature to understand the cat.
In my youth I used to visit at a house in the Place Royale;
the salon was hung with tapestry and decorated with Gothic
ornaments; in its centre stood a large red ottoman, on which
a huge cat was seated, awaiting the homage of visitors with
grave dignity. This was the favourite cat of Victor Hugo,
whom, in his ‘ Lettres sur le Rhin ’ he calls Chanoine, because
of his indolence and idleness.” Saint-Beuve’s Palemon was
permitted to range undisturbed through the critic’s precious
manuscripts. Among the guests who came to the house he
had a natural preference for Theophile Gautier. Huysmans
once said, “ In the matter of animals I love only cats but I
love them unreasonably for their qualities and in spite of their
numerous faults. I have only one but I could not live without
a cat.” But later he wrote, “ I have been and still am a
diligent friend of the feline race, but since the death of my
last cat I do not own one; my affection is then for the present
entirely platonic.” This feeling that there will never be
another, after the death of a cat, is pretty generally distributed,
but in time another usually comes. Stephane Mallarme held
that a cat was a necessary adjunct of the home. He com-
pleted it, polished the furniture, softened the angles, and gave
the place mystery. He was the last bibelot, the supreme
touch ! Mallarme’s Lilith was sketched by Whistler. Fran-
cois Coppee named one of his cats Bourget, who unlike his
namesake, became a great fighter until finally his ears were
torn to lace. His nickname was Zeze and he lived to be

There is a reproduction of this sketch on P. 251 of Paul Megnin’s book,
“Notre Ami le Chat.”

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The Tiger in the House

twenty years old. Coppee owned two more celebrated cats,
Loulou and Mistigris. These pussies had their own physician,
M. Bourrel, who once remarked, to Coppee’s delight, “ These
are not the first literary cats that I have had the honour of
caring for. I was also the physician for the cats of M. Paul
de Kock.” Paul de Kock, indeed, was a true felinophile
enrage. His property at Lilas was surrounded by a wall and
within the enclosure pussies roamed at their leisure. His
neighbours were familiar with his weakness and whenever
they found a stray cat, they carried it to him. They did not
even take the trouble to ring the bell at the gate. The cat
was tossed over the wall to join the vast family already
there. Frederic Mistral loved his cat, Marcabrun. Catulle
Mendes was attracted towards cats by their beauty. Aside
from Mime, who committed suicide on account of certain al-
terations, he owned Fasolt and Fafner, who during their and
his lifetime, dined at his table. Georges Courteline had a
fondness for the rakish apache cats of the Butte Montmartre
and he named them the Purotin of the Rue de Ruisseau,
Charles Scherer, alias I’lnfame, alias la Terreur de Clingnan-
court, la Mere Dissipee, le Petit Turbulent, and the Rouquin
de Montmartre. When Ernest la Jeunesse came to Paris
from Nancy he brought five cats with him, Elsa, Thai's,
Paphnuce, Berenice, and Boudolha. From the names we
would gather that these became twenty-five before the year
was out. This list, you will observe, is not short. Indeed a
history of the French felinophiles might serve as the literary
history of France. In this connection it is interesting to re-
member that Frangois Coppee, Catulle Mendes, Andre Theu-
riet, A Sylvestre, Octave Mirbeau, Eugene Lambert, Steinlen,
Pierre Megnin, and Maurice Vaucaire served on the jury of
the first cat-show in Paris.

Cat-shows have undoubtedly done much to raise this little animal in the
estimation of unbelievers. They have also made it a great incentive to im-
prove breeds. It is unfortunate, however, that cat-shows at present are so

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Literary Men Who Have Loved Cats

“ The Black Cat ” is perhaps not the story of a cat-lover;
nevertheless Poe loved cats, and there are those who even
assert that Baudelaire inherited this passion from Poe, and
took it over together with the other paraphernalia of the
alchemist’s retreat. At any rate a visitor to Poe in Fordham
in 1846, describes this scene in his cottage: “ There was no

clothing on the bed, which was only straw, but a snow-white
counterpane and sheets. The weather was cold and the sick
lady (Mrs. Poe) had the dreadful chills that accompany the
hectic fever of consumption. She lay on the straw bed,
wrapped in her husband’s great coat, with a large tortoise-
shell cat in her bosom. The wonderful cat seemed conscious
of her great usefulness. The coat and the cat were the suf-
ferer’s only means of warmth, except as her husband held
her hands and her mother her feet.” Mrs. Poe died in Janu-
ary 1847. Lafcadio Hearn, it may well be imagined, was
a felinophile. “ Very much do I love cats,” he writes in
“ Kotto,” “ and I suppose that I could write a large book
about the different cats that I have kept, in various climes
and times, on both sides of the world.” Alas, Hearn never
wrote this book, which might have been his masterpiece, but
pussies stroll through his other works.

Mark Twain completely capitulated to grimalkin; cats, in-
deed, it would seem were one of the necessities of life to him.
In “ Pudd’nhead Wilson ” he says, ” A home without a cat,
and a well-fed, well-petted, and properly revered cat, may be
a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove its title?”
Cat comparisons, cat allusions, cat descriptions, cat figures,
cats and kittens abound in his stories. Twain even mentions
cats in his early lecture on Artemus Ward.^® In “ Following
the Equator,” somewhere in the Orient he remarks the ab-

largely in the hands of professional breeders, who are anxious to advance the
prices of their “ stock.” The cat-shows in both England and France were
started by artists, authors, and rich amateurs. It would be a good thing if
more people in these classes would interest themselves in American cat-shows.

Don C. Seitz: “Artemus Ward,” P. 140.

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The Tiger in the House

sence of the cat from a fauna otherwise satisfactory. “ And
yet,” he observes plaintively, “ a cat would have liked the
place.” In “The Stolen White Elephant” we read: “We

saw upwards of a million cats in Bermuda, but the people are
very abstemious in the matter of dogs. Two or three nights
we prowled the country far and wide, and never once were
accosted by a dog. It is a great privilege to visit such a
land.” Mr. Clemens wrote several stories about cats and
he was once photographed with a kitten. Naturally there
were always cats in his home (Like George Borrow, Samuel
Butler, and George Moore he specialized in the domestic
variety) and I have been told that when he played billiards,
his cat frequently watched him from one corner of the
table. In a letter to “ Saint Nicholas ” he speaks of Sour
Mash, Apollinaris, Zoroaster, Blatherskite, “ names given
them, not in an unfriendly spirit, but merely to practise the
children in large and difficult styles of pronunciation.”

All readers of “ Roughing It ” will remember Tom Quartz,
“ who wouldn’t let the Gov’ner of Californy be familiar with
him,” and who “ never ketched a rat in his life — ’peared to be
above it. You couldn’t tell him nothin’ ’bout placer dig-
gins — ’n’ as for pocket mining, why he was jest born for
it. He would dig out after me an’ Jim when we went over
the hills prospect’n, and he would trot along behind us for
as much as five mile; if we went so fur. An’ he had the best
judgment about mining ground — why you never see anything
like it. When we went to work, he’d scatter a glance around,
’n’ if he didn’t think much of the indications, he would give
a look as much as to say, ‘ Well, I’ll have to get you to ex-
cuse me,’ ’n’ without another word he’d hyste his nose in
the air and shove for home. But if the ground suited him,
he would lay low ’n’ take a look, an’ if there was about six
or seven grains of gold he was satisfied — he didn’t want no

“ Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion”; P. 74.

This letter was republished in “ Cat Stories from Saint Nicholas.”

294

Literary Men Who Have Loved Cats

better prospect ’n that — ’n’ then he would lay down on
our coats and snore like a steamboat till we’d struck the pocket
an’ then get up ’n’ superintend.” In due time quartz mining
became fashionable. One day Tom, asleep on the coat, was
forgotten when the fuse was lit, and when the explosion fol-
lowed he rose in the air with the shower of rock. There-
after Tom “ shoved off ” for home as soon as any one lit a
fuse.

“ When Tom was sot once, he was always sot, and you might
a blowed him up as much as three million times ’n’ never a
broken him of his cussed prejudice agin quartz mining.”
Theodore Roosevelt must have enjoyed this story for he
named a White House cat, Tom Quartz. This cat once play-
fully challenged the dignity of Joe Cannon.^®

Henry James’s love of cats is a more esoteric matter. Less
is probably known about this writer’s private life than about
the life of any man equally prominent. He was seldom, if
ever, interviewed, and anecdotes of his adventures and per-
sonal habits did not appear in the magazine sections of the
Sunday newspapers, or in ” The Ladies’ Home Journal.” Nev-
ertheless one writer has asserted that Henry James often
worked with a cat on his shoulder,^® a statement I should not
have credited uncorroborated, but in a paper by S. B. Wister
I found the following: “ The prettiest of Princess’s ways was

a fashion she had of rearing on her hind legs, pressing her
little pink nose against the face that bent over her, and at
the same time patting the cheeks with her forepaws. She re-
served this caress for her mistress almost exclusively, making
a rare exception in favour of her master, but for nobody else
save once, memorably for Mr. Henry James. It was very
rapid, very endearing, and had a touch of condescension about

This incident is related in “ Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His Chil-
dren.”

2® Marvin R. Clark: “Pussy and Her Language.”

Temple Bar”; January 1896.

295

The Tiger in the House

it which was characteristic of her attitude towards man and
beast.”

In William Dean Howells’s ” My Literary Passions ” that
author tells us how in his youth he wrote a “ mock-heroic epic
of a cat fight, studied from the cat fights in our back yard,
with the wonted invocation to the Muse, and the machinery
of partisan gods and goddesses. It was in some hundreds of
verses, which I did my best to balance as Pope did, with a
caesura falling in the middle of the line, and a neat antithesis
at either end.” Further pussies decorate the progress of Mr.
Howells’s many volumes and in ” Familiar Spanish Studies ”
I found convincing evidence of this writer’s real love for cats,
for it would seem that he would turn away from Goya and
El Greco to pet and talk to cats in Spain. I was somewhat
astonished to learn that this idiosyncrasy had not grown fur-
ther, for Mr. Howells wrote me, ” We are a cat family as
opposed to dogs, but I have no great personal passion for
cats.” Perhaps not, yet in one of his books, Mr. Howells
has made a very personal study of a cat named Jim who lived
at Kittery Point. “ Unless one has lived at Kittery Point,
and realized from observation and experience, what a leading
part cats play in society, one cannot feel the full import of
this fact. Not only has every house in Kittery its cat, but
every house seems to have its half-dozen cats, large, little, old,
and young; of divers colours, tending mostly to a dark tortoise-
shell.^^ With a whole ocean inviting to the tragic rite, I do
not believe there is ever a kitten drowned in Kittery; the
illimitable sea rather employs itself in supplying the fish to
which ‘ no cat’s averse,’ but which the cats of Kittery demand
to have cooked. They do not like raw fish ; they say it plainly,

22 “ In Gerona Cathedral there was a cat who would stroll about in front
of the capilla mayor during the progress of mass, receiving the caresses of the
passersby,” writes Havelock Ellis in “The Soul of Spain,” P. 14.

23 “ Literature and Life.”

2‘t Mr. Howells probably means tabby.

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Literary Men Who Have Loved Cats

and they prefer to have the bones taken out for them, though
they do not insist upon that point.”

Jim scented the odour of broiled mackerel in the air about
the Howells kitchen and dropped in one evening ” with a fine
casual effect of being merely out for a walk, and feeling it a
neighbourly thing to call. He had on a silver collar, en-
graved with his name and surname, which offered itself for
introduction like a visiting card. He was too polite to ask
himself to the table at once, but after he had been welcomed
to the family circle, he formed the habit of finding himself
with us at breakfast and supper, when he sauntered in like
one who should say, ‘ Did I smell fish? ’ but would not go
further in the way of hinting.

” He had no need to do so. He was made at home, and
freely invited to our best not only in fish, but in chicken, for
which he showed a nice taste, and in sweet-corn, for which he
revealed a most surprising fondness when it was cut from the
cob for him. After he had breakfasted or supped he grace-
fully suggested that he was thirsty by climbing to the table
where the water-pitcher stood and stretching his fine feline
head towards it. When he had lapped up his saucer of water,
he marched into the parlour, and riveted the chains upon our
fondness by taking the best chair and going to sleep in it in
attitudes of Egyptian, of Assyrian majesty. His arts were
few or none; he rather disdained to practise any; he completed
our conquest by maintaining himself simply a fascinating
presence. . .

Thomas A. Janvier was a great ailurophile. Tabbies and
silvers insinuate themselves smilingly into the pages of many
of his books. “ Not that I would depreciate one single beast
— no, not even the hippopotamus in order to give cats a better
standing; ” he writes, “ for all of them in their severally

25 In his essay, “The Cats of Henriette Ronner”; “The Century Maga-
zine”; October 1893.

297

The Tiger in the House

appointed places, have those first good qualities wherewith
they have been endowed by their creator. . . . But to some
natures — of which, I confess, mine own is one — the super-
eminence of the cat over every other animal, save man alone,
is so obtrusive a certainty that there surely is no denying it.”
Edmund Clarence Stedman was an admirer of cats. In 1895
he owned a great maltese called Babylon and Mrs. Stedman
a long-haired blue called Kelpie. Sarah Orne Jewett is a cat-
lover and the old gentlewomen of her books usually are felin-
ophiles too. Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett exhibited her
Dick at the first New York cat-show. Mary E. Wilkins is
devoted to puss and she has written several stories about him.
I especially remember the dreary old New England spinster
who lost her Willy, and who thereupon became very wicked,
figuratively cursed her Maker, and refused to go to meetin’.
Willy was eventually discovered in the cellar where the spin-
ster herself had unwittingly locked him up. I think Miss
Repplier must love cats with a fervour equal to her adoration
of the eighteenth century English essayists. At least they
share an equal importance in her books. Her study of a kit-
ten, her portraits of Agrippina, Claudius Nero, and Lux
are among the treasures of felinature, and yet Miss Repplier
seems always a little afraid that she loves her cats more than
they love her.

Cats appear somewhere in nearly all the books of Edgar
Saltus, which is but fitting in the works of a son of the
French diabolists, but the only story he has written which
directly concerns puss is about a girl,

qui miaulait d’un ton fort doux.

Saltus’s passion for the animal is as intense as that of
Baudelaire. Like the author of the ” Fleurs du Mai ” he
stops to converse with every grimalkin he meets on the street.
Indeed wherever he goes, which to be sure is next to nowhere,

26 To me this exception seems unduly cautious and unnecessary.

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Literary Men Who Have Loved Cats

for Saltus is a recluse, the cats he meets receive more attention
from him than men. In “ The Anatomy of Negation,” one
reads, “ Throughout the middle ages no sorcerer was consid-
ered well-equipped without a sleek black cat, an animal to
which, like many a sensible mortal, the devil appears to have
been greatly attached.” In “ Mr. Incoul’s Misadventure ”
there is a Thibetan cat. In “ The Paliser Case ” there is a
cat with “ long hair, the colour of smoke, a bushy tail, the
eyes of an angel, and a ferocious moustache.”

But of all American cat-lovers I think perhaps Charles Dud-
ley Warner deserves first place. . . . “ I only had one cat,”
he once said, “ and he was more of a companion than a cat.
When he departed this life I did not care to do as many men
do when their partners die, take a second.” The wonderful
Calvin appears briefly in the delightful chapters of “ My
Summer in a Garden,” which Samuel Butler sent to Miss
Savage warning her to keep silent if she did not like it, “ for
I cannot bear to have people disagree with me.” After Cal-
vin’s death Warner wrote a special paper about him, which
is included in later editions of this work. This essay is a
masterpiece of sympathetic prose and one of the best cat por-
traits that has been given to us by a literary man. Calvin, it
seems, walked one day a full-grown cat into the home of Mrs.
Harriet Beecher Stowe. “ It was as if he had inquired at the
door if that was the residence of the author of ‘ Uncle Tom’s
Cabin,’ and, upon being assured that it was, had decided to
dwell there.” Later when Mrs. Stowe moved to Florida,
Calvin was entrusted to the Warner family of which he was a
beloved member until his death eight years later.

“ He was of royal mould, and had an air of high breeding.
He was large, but he had nothing of the fat grossness of the
celebrated Angora family; though powerful, he was exquisitely
proportioned, and as graceful in every movement as a young
leopard. . . . His coat was the finest and softest I have ever
seen, a shade of quiet maltese; and from his throat down-

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The Tiger in the House

ward underneath, to the white tips of his feet, he wore the
whitest and most delicate ermine; and no person was ever
more fastidiously neat. In his finely formed head you saw
something of his aristocratic character; the ears were small
and cleanly cut, there was a tinge of pink in the nostrils, his
face was handsome, and the expression of his countenance ex-
ceedingly intelligent — I should call it even a sweet expres-
sion if the term were not inconsistent with his look of alert-
ness and sagacity.

“ Although he had fixed notions about his own rights, and
extraordinary persistency in getting them, he never showed
temper at a repulse; he simply and firmly persisted till he had
what he wanted. His diet was one point; his idea was that
of the scholars about dictionaries, — ‘ to get the best.’ He
knew as well as any one what was in the house, and would
refuse beef if turkey was to be had; and if there were oysters,
he would wait over the turkey to see if the oysters would not
be forthcoming. And yet he was not a gross gourmand; he
would eat bread if he saw me eating it, and thought he was
not being imposed on.

“ The intelligence of Calvin was something phenomenal, in
his rank of life. He established a method of communicating
his wants, and even some of his sentiments; and he could help
himself in many things. There was a furnace register in a
retired room, where he used to go when he wished to be
alone, that he always opened when he desired more heat; but
never shut it, any more than he shut the door after himself.
. . . I hesitate a little to speak of his capacity for friendship
and the affectionateness of his nature, for I know from his own
reserve that he would not care to have it much talked about.
We understood each other perfectly, but we never made any
fuss about it; when I spoke his name and snapped my fingers,
he came to me; when I returned home at night, he was pretty
sure to be waiting for me near the gate, and would rise and
gaunter along the walk, as if his being there was purely ac-

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Literary Men Who Have Loved Cats

cidental, — so shy was he commonly of showing feeling.
There was one thing he never did, — he never rushed through
an open doorway. He never forgot his dignity. If he had
asked to have the door opened, and was eager to go out, he
always went out deliberately; I can see him now, standing on
the sill, looking about at the sky as if he was thinking whether
it were worth while to take an umbrella, until he was near
having his tail shut in.

“ His friendship was rather constant than demonstrative.
When we returned from an absence of nearly two years, Cal-
vin welcomed us with evident pleasure, but showed his satis-
faction rather by tranquil happiness than by fuming about.
He had the faculty of making us glad to get home. It was
his constancy that was so attractive. He liked companionship,
but he wouldn’t be petted, or fussed over, or sit in any one’s
lap a moment; he always extricated himself from such fa-
miliarity with dignity and with no show of temper. If there
was any petting to be done, however, he chose to do it. Often
he would sit looking at me, and then, moved by a delicate
affection, come and pull at my coat and sleeve until he could
touch my face with his nose, and then go away contented.”

Like Loti, Mr. Warner touches our hearts very deeply in the
death scene, a scene which is very sincerely, very beautifully
written. An animal who can inspire such prose as ” Calvin ”
and ” Vie de Deux Chats ” has certainly served his purpose in
this world.

301

Chapter Thirteen: Apotheosis

Les betes sont au bon Dieu;

Mais la betise est a I’homme.

Victor Hugo.

I have written, how skilfully I cannot tell, on the manners
and customs of the cat, his graces and calineries, the history
of his subjugation of humankind. Through all the ages, even
during the dark epoch of witchcraft and persecution, puss has
maintained his supremacy, continued to breed and multiply,
defying, when convenient, the laws of God and man, now our
friend, now our enemy, now wild, now tame, the pet of the
hearth or the tiger of the heath, but always free, always inde-
pendent, always an anarchist who Insists upon his rights, what-
ever the cost. The cat never forms soviets; he works alone.

We have much to learn from the cat, we men who prefer
to follow the slavish habits of the dog or the ox or the horse.
If men and women would become more feline, indeed, I think it
would prove the salvation of the human race. Certainly It
would end war, for cats will not fight for an Ideal in the mass,
having no faith In mass ideals, although a single cat will fight
to the death for his own ideals, his freedom of speech and
expression. The dog and the horse, on the other hand, per-
petuate war, by group thinking, group acting, and serve fur-
ther to encourage popular belief in that monstrous panacea,
universal brotherhood.

For the next war man will build ships which can make sixty
or seventy knots an hour; submarines will skim through five
thousand leagues of the sea with the speed of sharks; and
airships will fly over cities, dropping bundles of TNT.

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Apotheosis

Saigon, Berlin, Cairo, Paris, Madrid, and even Indianapolis
are doomed to disappear. Man himself will become extinct;
crude, silly man, always struggling against Nature, rather than
with Nature behind him, helping him forward and across, be-
yond the abysses and torrents and landslides of existence.
And presently everything we know will be over, another cycle
of years will begin, and a new “ civilization ” will arise.

For man has persistently, and perhaps a little intentionally,
misunderstood the Prometheus legend. Prometheus was the
enemy, not the friend, of man. The fire which he brought
to earth was a devastating flame and Zeus, the Nature God,
chained him to a rock to protect humanity. This misuse of
holy things, this turning of good to the account of evil, this
misapplication of natural principles to unnatural practices are
the commonplaces of history, the foundations of our present
state, and the causes of all misery.

But the cat will survive. He is no such fool as man. He
know's that he must have Nature behind him. He also knows
that it is easier for one cat alone to fit into the curves of Nature
than two cats. So he walks by himself. For Nature here
and Nature there are two different Natures and what one cat
on one side of the fence has to do is not what another cat
on the other side of the fence has to do. But the great prin-
ciples are obeyed by all cats to such an extent that twenty, a
hundred, a thousand cats will willingly give their lives, which
they might easily save, to preserve an instinct, a racial memory,
which will serve to perpetuate the feline race. The result
will be that, after the cataclysm, out of the mounds of
heaped-up earth, the piles and wrecks of half-buried cities,
the desolated fields of grain, and the tortured orchards, the cat
will stalk, confident, self-reliant, capable, imperturbable, and
philosophical. He will bridge the gap until man appears again
and then he will sit on new hearths and again will teach his
mighty lesson to ears and eyes that again are dumb and blind.
Shylock’s doom was foretold by Shakespeare from the moment

303

The Tiger in the House

the poet asked the poor creature to say, “ the harmless neces-
sary cat.” For it is possible, nay probable, that the cat,
unlike man who forgets his previous forms, remembers, really
remembers, many generations back; that what we call instinct
may be more profound than knowledge. And so Providence
wisely has not allowed the cat to speak any language save his
own.

We may dominate dogs, but cats can never be dominated
except by force. They can be annihilated, at least a few of
them can, but never made servile or banal. The cat is
never vulgar. He will not even permit God to interfere with
his liberty and if he suffers so much as a toothache he will re-
fuse all food. He would rather die than endure pain. Thus,
like the Spartan, he preserves the strength of his stock. He
may at any moment change his motto from Libertas Sine
I. above or A^yiica Non Serva to Quand Menie.

There is, indeed, no single quality of the cat that man could
not emulate to his advantage. He is clean, the cleanest, in-
deed, of all the animals, absolutely without odour or soil when
it is within his power to be so. He is silent, walking on
padded paws with claws withdrawn, making no sound unless
he wishes to say something definite and then he can express
himself freely. He believes in free-speech, and not only be-
lieves in it, but indulges in it. Nothing will make a cat stop
talking when he wants to, except the hand of death.

He is entirely self-reliant. He lives in homes because he
chooses to do so, and as long as the surroundings and the
people suit him, but he lives there on his own terms, and never
sacrifices his own comfort or his own well-being for the sake
of the stupid folk with whom he comes in contact. Thus
he is the most satisfactory of friends. Among men (or
women) it is customary to say, “ We’re dining with the Ogil-
vies tonight. We don’t want to go but they’ll never forgive
us if we don’t.” Meanwhile the Ogilvies are muttering,
” Good God! This is the night those horrible Mitchells are

304

FEATHERS ALERT

From a photograph by Harriet l\ Furness

Apotheosis

coming to dinner. I wish they would telephone that they
cannot come. Perhaps their motor will break down on the
way! ” The cat neither gives nor accepts invitations that do
not come from the heart. If he tires of his friends some-
times, so do I. If he wishes to move he does so. Perhaps to
another house, perhaps to the wilds. If he is suddenly thrown
on his own resources in the country he can support himself
on the highway; he can even support himself in town under
conditions that would terrify that half-hearted, group-seeking
socialist, the dog. The cat is virile, and virility is a quality
which man has almost lost. St. George Mivart insisted that
the cat rather than man was at the summit of the animal
kingdom and that he was the best-fitted of the mammalians
to make his way in the world.^ I agree perfectly with St.
George Mivart. I do not see how it is possible for any one
to disagree with him. But the cat makes no boast of his
pre-eminent position; he is satisfied to occupy it. He does not
call man a “ lower animal ” although doubtless he regards him
in this light. I have dwelt at some length on his occult sense.
It can scarcely be overestimated. He has not lost the power
of gesture language. With his tail, with his paws, his cocking
ears, his eyes, his head, the turn of his body, or the waving of
his fur, he expresses in symbols the most cabalistic secrets.
He is beautiful and he is graceful. He makes his appearance
and his life as exquisite as circumstances will permit. He is
modest, he is urbane, he is dignified. Indeed, a well-bred cat
never argues. He goes about doing what he likes in a well-
bred superior manner. If he is interrupted he will look at
you in mild surprise or silent reproach but he will return to
his desire. If he is prevented, he will wait for a more favour-
able occasion. But like all well-bred individualists, and unlike
human anarchists, the cat seldom interferes with other people’s

1 St. George Mivart; “The Cat,” P. 492: “The organization of the cat-

tribe may be deemed superior, because it is not only excellent in itself, but
because it is fitted to dominate the excellences of other beasts.”

305

The Tiger in the House

rights. His intelligence keeps him from doing many of the
fool things that complicate life. Cats never write operas and
they never attend them. They never sign papers, or pay taxes,
or vote for president. An injunction will have no power
whatever over a cat. A cat, of course, would not only refuse
to obey any amendment whatever to any constitution, he
would refuse to obey the constitution itself.

Feathers is very tired of this book. She has told me so
more than once lately. Sometimes with her eyes, gazing at
me with impatience while I write. Sometimes with her paws,
scratching scornfully at the sheets of paper as I toss them to
the floor. Sometimes on my writing table she insinuates her-
self between me and my work. When I began this book she
was a kitten, a chrysanthemum-like ball of tawny, orange,
white, and black fuzzy fur, and now she is about to become
a mother. Yes, while I have been writing a book. Feathers
has experienced teething, love, and now soon will come ma-
ternity. It makes me feel very small, very unimportant.
What I have done in fourteen months seems very little when
it is compared with what she has done.

The mystery of life deepens for her. Her eyes are slightly
drawn. She is less active and she wishes more repose. She
needs the warmth of my knees, where she desires to sleep un-
interrupted by the sound of clicking keys. She is pleading
with me to come to an end. And I cannot resist her prayer.
See, Feathers, I am nearly done. I am writing the last page.
You can come to me now and spend the hours of preparation
in my lap, and I offer, rather than this poor book, to test
myself as a literary man, after Samuel Butler’s method, by
naming your yet unborn kittens. I shall call them, if Nature
gives you five, and the sexes permit, Aurelie, Golden Feathers,
Coq d’Or, Prince Igor, and Jurgen.

March 4, IQ20.

New York.

306

Bibliography and Index

The obligations incurred in the preparation of this book have been
many and deep. I wish to thank my wife, Fania Marinoli, for sug-
gesting the charming title, Mrs. Harriet V. Furness for her admirable
photographs of cats, of which I have used so many, Mr. Arthur Davison
Ficke, for photographs of Japanese prints in his collection, and per-
haps most of all, my friend, Alfred F. Goldsmith, who has scoured
Europe, Asia, and Hoboken for some books which were very difficult
to find. The cover design is from a medal struck in 1725, now in the
French National Library. For the rest the bibliography will express my
gratitude.

Bibliography

This bibliography makes no pretence to being complete. It includes
very few books that I have not read myself, very few books, indeed,
which are not in my own library. An exhaustive bibliography on the
subject of cats would undoubtedly fill a very large volume all by itself.
But this one is more nearly complete than any other which exists; as
a matter of fact it is the only bibliography on the subject that I know
save Mr. Babington’s, which covers only a small and select private
library, and which makes no mention of periodical literature. I have
not in all cases listed first editions ; generally I have mentioned the
special edition I have consulted. As for errors and omissions I shall
be only too glad to receive news of them as at some future time,
in another publication, I may extend the present list. Any one who
has suggestions to make may address me care of my publisher, Alfred A.
Knopf, 220 West Forty-second Street, New York City.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Babington, Percy L. : A Collection of Books about Cats; fifty-four

copies printed by J. B. Peace, M.A. at the University Press, Cam-
bridge, England; August 1918.

GENERAL

Champfleury (pseudonym of Jules Husson) : Les Chats; J. Roths-

child; Paris; 1870. The fifth edition is an edition de luxe, and
includes a lithograph in colour by Marie Champfleurr^ after Bur-
bank, other illustrations in colour, etchings by Edouard Manet,
Eugene Lambert, Armand Gautier, Crafty, and Marie Champ-
fleury, besides numerous illustrations in the text.

309

Bibliography

This book was translated by Mrs. Cashel Hoey, with supplementary
notes, under the title: The Cat Past and Present; G. Bell and
Sons; London; 1885. The illustrations are from the original
French edition.

Chance, Mrs. W. (later Lady) : A Book of Cats, being a discourse

on cats with many quotations and original pencil drawings; J. M.
Dent and Co.; London; 1898. E. P. Dutton and Co. published
an American edition the same year.

Clark, Marvin R. : Pussy and Her Language, including a paper on

the wonderful discovery of the cat language by Alphonse Leon
Grimaldi, F.R.S., etc. Published by the author; New York;

1895-

Gautier, Theophile: La Nature Chez Elle et la Menagerie Intime;

Bibliotheque-Charpentier ; Paris.

Landrin, Alexandre: Le Chat: zoologie, origine, historique, moeurs,

habitudes, races, anatomie, maladies, jurisprudence; Georges Carre;
Paris; 1894. With one illustration.

Marks, Anne: The Cat in History, Legend, and Art: Elliot Stock;

London; 1909. The illustrations are by the author.

Megnin, Paul: Notre Ami le Chat, with a preface by Francois Cop-

pee; J. Rothschild; Paris; 1899. With two hundred illustrations
(drawings and photographs), many of which are from Champ-
fleury’s book.

Michel, Gustav: Das Buch der Katzen; Hermann Weisbach; Wei-

mar; 1876. With twenty-six illustrations from drawings.
Michelet, Madame Jules: Les Chats; E. Flammarion; Paris. Gab-

riel Monod edited this book which Madame Michelet left in
manuscript at the time of her death.

Moncrif, F. A. Paradis de: Les Chats; Quillan ; Paris; 1727. There

are nine drawings by Charles Coypel, engraved by the Comte de
Caylus, and ornamental woodcut head and tail pieces. In 1728 an
edition of this book was published at Rotterdam, the engravings
for which were made from Coypel’s drawings by Otten. Les
Chats was published anonymously.

Percheron, Gaston: Le Chat: histoire naturelle; hygiene; maladies;

Firmin-Didot et Cie. ; Paris; 1885. Illustrations from drawings.
Repplier, Agnes: The Fireside Sphinx; Houghton, Mifflin and Co.;

Boston; 1902, The illustrations are by Elisabeth F. Bonsall.

310

Bibliography

Ross, Charles Henry: The Book of Cats, a chit-chat chronicle of

feline facts and fancies, legendary, lyrical, medical, mirthful, and
miscellaneous; Griffith and Farran; London; 1868. With twenty
illustrations by the author.

Simpson, Frances: The Book of the Cat; Cassell and Co., Ltd.;

London; 1903. With twelve coloured plates and nearly three
hundred and fifty illustrations in the text from drawings and
photographs.

Weir, Harrison: Our Cats and All About Them, their varieties,

habits, and management; and for show, the standard of excellence
and beauty; described and pictured; R. Clements; Tunbridge
Wells; 1889. This book was published in America by Houghton,
Mifflin and Co.; Boston, the same year. With numerous illustra-
tions by the author. There is a large paper edition of the English
issue.

Winslow, Helen M.: Concerning Cats, my own and some others;

Lothrop Publishing Co.; Boston; I9CX>. Illustrated with photo-
graphs.

Ill

VARIETIES, BREEDING, CARE, AND DISEASES

Aspinwall, Grace: Pussies, Plebeian and Royal; Good Housekeeping;

August 1909; Vol. 49, P. 178. Illustrated with photographs.
Barton, Frank Townend: The Cat: its points and management in

health and disease; Everett and Co.; London; 1908. Illustrated
with photographs and drawings.

Bennett, I. D. : Cat Fancy; American Homes and Gardens; Novem-

ber 1913; Vol. 10, P. 380. Illustrated with photographs.

Betelle, Mabel Nicholson: One-cat Cattery and how to make it pay;

Country Life in America; January 15, 1912; Vol 21. Illustrated
with photographs.

Bosworth, Isabella Essex: The Care and Training of the House Cat;

Country Life in America; November 1907; Vol. 13, P. 72. Il-
lustrated with photographs.

Brown, C.: Cats as Money-makers; Harper’s Bazaar; August 1912;

Vol. 46, P. 388. Illustrated with photographs.

311

Bibliography

Brown, Elizabeth Frances: The Popular Persian Cat; The Country-

side Magazine; October 1915; Vol. 21, P. 218.

Cat Culture; Spratt’s Patent (Am.) Ltd.; Newark, N. J. Pamphlet.
Illustrated with photographs.

Champion, Dorothy Bevill: Everybody’s Cat Book; New York; 1909.

Illustrated with photographs. This book, one of the latest and
best for the breeder of Persian cats, is easily procurable.

Clayton, G. V.,: A Treatise on the Cat; published by the author;

Chicago. Pamphlet.

Cornish-Bond, Mabel: Cat Raising as a Business; Munsey’s Maga-

zine; 1901. Vol. 25, P. 841. Illustrated with photographs.
Crandall, Lee S. : Pets; their history and their care; Henry Holt and
Co; New York; 1917. Illustrated with photographs.

Cost, the Honourable Lady: The Cat: its history, diseases, and man-

agement; Henry J. Drake; London.

Daniels, Dr. A. C. : The Cat Doctor: home treatment for cats and

kittens; published by the author; Boston; 1911. Pamphlet.

Diehl, J. E. : The Domestic Cat : different breeds and varieties, how

to keep and rear them, together with a treatise of their diseases —
with symptoms and remedies for them; Associated Fanciers; Phil-
adelphia; 1899. Pamphlet.

Ewart, J. Cossar; The principles of breeding and the origin of domes-
ticated breeds of animals; U. S. Department of Agriculture;
Bureau of Animal Industry; 1912. With especial reference to the
theories of telegony ^ and saturation.

Farrington, E. L: A Palace for Cats; Technical World ; August 1914;

Vol. 21, P. 900. Illustrated with photographs.

Hall, Kate A. Cat Farming in California; Overland Monthly; April
1907; N. S. Vol. 49, P. 299. Illustrated with photographs.

Hill, J. Woodroffe: The Diseases of the Cat; William R. Jenkins;

New York; 1903. Illustrated with photographs.

Huidekoper, Rush Shippen: The Cat, a guide to the classification and

varieties of cats and a short treatise upon their care, diseases, and

1 Telegony is the name given to the hypothesis that the offspring of a
known sire sometimes inherit characteristics from a previous mate of their
dam. Prof. James Cossar Ewart: The Penicuik Experiments, 1899, put tele-

gony to the test and found it wanting. Romanes also was against it after
investigation.

312

Bibliography

treatment; D. Appleton and Co.; New York; 1895. With over
thirty illustrations from drawings and photographs.

James, Robert Kent: The Angora Cat: how to breed, train and keep

it; with additional chapters on the history, peculiarities and dis-
eases of the animal; James Brothers; Boston; 1898. Illustrated
with photographs.

Jennings, John: Domestic and Fancy Cats: a practical treatise on their

antiquity, domestication, varieties, breeding, management, diseases,
exhibition and judging; L. Upcott Gill; London; 1893. Illus-
trated with drawings. The second edition, revised and consider-
ably enlarged, illustrated with photographs, appeared in 1901.
This book may be recommended to the breeder.

L. H. F. : Her Serene Highness, the Cat; Harper’s Bazaar; May 26,
1900; Vol. 33, P. 222. Illustrated with photographs.

Lane, Charles Henry: Rabbits, Cats and Cavies: descriptive sketches

of all recognized exhibition varieties with many original anecdotes ;
J. M. Dent and Co.; London; 1903. With over one hundred il-
lustrations by Rosa Bebb.

Martling, Harriet: Cats of Leisure and Lineage; Overland Monthly;

1900; Vol. 36, P. 460. Illustrated with photographs.

Miller, Olive Thorne (Harriet Mann Miller): Our Home Pets;

how to keep them well and happy; Harper and Brothers; New
York; 1894. Pages 195-230 are devoted to cats. Illustrated with
drawings.

Morrison, F.H.S. : The Aristocratic Persian Cat; Country Life in

America; September 1908; Vol. 14, P. 446. Illustrated with
photographs by A. Radclyffe Dugmore and others.

Neel, Edith K. : Cats: how to care for them in health and treat them

when ill; Boericke and Tafel; Philadelphia; 1902. Illustrated
with photographs and drawings. This small manual, which is
easily procurable, may be recommended.

Roberts, Walter T. : Some Celebrated Cats and Their Owners; Cas-

sell’s Magazine; London; 1904; Vol. 38, P. 77. Illustrated with
photographs.

Roderick, Virginia: The Aristocracy of Cats; Everybody’s Maga-

zine; 1909; Vol. 20, P. 216. Illustrated with photographs.

Rule, Philip V. : The Cat : its natural history, domestic varieties,

management and treatment; with an essay on feline instinct by

313

Bibliography

Bernard Perez; Swan Sonnenschein, Lowery and Co.; London;
1887. The Illustrations are from drawings.

Rydall, E. H.: The Care of the Cat; Country Life in America;

August 1907; Vol. 12, P. 444. Illustrated with photographs.

Saint Maur, Kate V.: Caring for Home Pets; Woman’s Home Com-

panion; July 1910; Vol. 37, P. 26.

Simpson, Frances: Cats for Pleasure and Profit; Sir Isaac Pitman and

Sons, Ltd.; London; 1909. This is a new and revised edition; the
original title was Cats and All About Them. With twenty-five
illustrations from photographs.

Stables, Gordon: Cats, their humane and rational treatment; Cham-

bers’s Journal; September 8, 1883; Vol. 60, P. 572.

Stables, William Gordon: Cats, their points and characteristics, with

curiosities of cat life, and a chapter on feline ailments; Dean and
Smith; London; 1874. Illustrated with a photographic frontis-
piece of the author sitting with a retriever, cat, and starling, and
seven chromo-lithographs of prize cats, two on each plate and one
of an Abyssinian cat.

Stables, William Gordon: The Domestic Cat; G. Routledge and Sons;

London; 1876.

Stanwood, Harriet B.: Persian Cats for Profit; Country Life in

America; April 1915; Vol. 27, P. 90. Illustrated with photo-
graphs.

Stecker, C. H.: The common-sense care of Angora cats; Suburban

Life; November 1907; Vol. 5, P. 285. Illustrated with photo-
graphs by Jessie Tarbox Beals and W. F. Sleight.

The Types of Cats; Suburban Life; March 1908; Vol. 6, P. 184.

Voogt, Gos de: Our Domestic Animals, their habits, intelligence and

usefulness; translated from the French by Katherine P. Wormeley;
edited for America by Charles William Burkett; Ginn and Co.;
Boston; 1907. The section on the cat begins on P. 73. Illus-
trated with photographs, some of them coloured.

Wellington, Arthur: Beautiful Pets; Bostonian (National Maga-
zine) ; February 1896; Vol. 3, P. 459. Illustrated with photo-
graphs.

Bibliography

NATURAL HISTORY

Aristotle: History of Animals; translated by Richard Cressell; Bohn

Libraries; London; 1862.

Benton, J. R. : How a falling cat turns over; Science; New York;

January ig, 1912; N. S. Vol. 35, P. 104. This is a letter in
answer to W. S. Franklin.

Bingley, Reverend W. : Animal Biography or Popular Zoology; Three

volumes; London; 1813.

Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc: Histoire naturelle, generale, et par-

ticuliere; Paris; 1749-67.

Cochrane, Robert: Four Hundred Animal Stories; W. and R.

Chambers; Edinburgh; 1897. Cats, Chapter VI, P. 196. Il-
lustrated.

Doncaster,. L.: Sex-limited Inheritance in Cats; Science; August 2,

1912; N. S. Vol. 36, P. 144:

Dureau de la Mallu: The Cat: researches in regard to the ancient

history of our domestic animals; Edinburgh New Philosophical
Journal; July-October 1829; Vol. 7, P. 309.

Elliot, Daniel Giraud: A monograph of the Felidae or Family of

the Cats; Published for subscribers by the author; London; 1883,
large folio, with forty-three magnificent coloured plates by J.
Wolf.

Fabre, Jean-Henri-Casimir : Our Humble Friends, familiar talks on

the domestic animals; translated from the French by Florence
Constable Bicknell; Century Co.; New York; 1918. Illustrated
with drawings. Chapter XXVI, P. 239, The Cat.

Fairchild, David: Cats as Plant Investigators; Science; October 19,

igo6; N. S. Vol. 24, P. 498.

Franklin, W. S. How a falling cat turns over in the air; Science;
igii; N. S. Vol. 34, P. 844. This is a letter.

Howe, Freeland, jr. : A case of abnormality in cats’ paws; American

Naturalist; July 1902; Vol. 36, P. 511. Illustrated with
diagrams.

Hudson, W. H. : The Book of a Naturalist; George H. Doran Co.;

315

Bibliography

New York; 1919. A friendly rat, P. 232; The great dog-super-
stition, P. 238.

Jesse, Edward: Gleanings in Natural History; John Murray; Lon-

don; (new edition) 1838. Two volumes.

Little, C. C. : Preliminary note on occurrences of a sex-limited char-

acter in cats; Science; May 17, 1912; N. S. Vol. 35, P. 784.

Lydekker, R. : The Pedigree of the Cat; Knowledge; August 2, 1897;

Vol. 20, P. 1 81.

Miles, Alfred H.: 1001 Animal Anecdotes; Frederick A. Stokes Co.;

New York; His Grace the Cat, P. 67. With sixteen original
drawings and photographs by Winifred Austen and others.

Miller, Mrs. Hugh: Cats and Dogs, or notes and anecdotes of two

great families of the animal kingdom; T. Nelson and Sons; Lon-
don; 1872. Illustrated. The first six chapters are concerned
with the domestic cat and his wild relatives. Juvenile.

Miller, Olive Thorne (Harriet Mann Miller): Queer Pets at

Marcy’s; E. P. Dutton Co.; New York; 1880. Illustrated by
J. C. Beard. Juvenile.

Natural History Anecdotes; Leisure Hour; January 30, 1875; Vol.
24, P. 74. All cat anecdotes.

Nicol, Dr. John: The Best Cat Story Yet; Scientific American;

October 28, 1905; Vol. 93, P. 339.

Pennant, Thomas: British Zoology; printed for Benj. White; London;

1776. Four volumes. The cat is in Volume i.

Pocock, R.. L: The question of our two types of tabby cat; Nature;

September 8, 1910; Vol. 84, P. 298.

Poulton, Edward B.: Observations on heredity in cats with an ab-

normal number of toes; Nature; 1883; Vol. 29, P. 20; November
II, 1885; Vol. 35, P. 38; a letter from J. Herbert Wood: No-

vember 18, 1885; Vol. 35, P. 53; a letter from William White:
December 9, 1885; Vol. 35, P. 125. Illustrated with drawings
of paws.

Puss’s Pedigree; Literary Digest; October 27, 1917; Vol. 55.

Robinson, Louis: Wild Traits in Tame Animals, being some familiar
studies in evolution ; William Blackwood and Sons ; Edinburgh
and London; 1897; The Cat, Chapter IX, P. 227. Illustrations
by S. T. Dadd. This book will entertain the casual reader and
stimulate the student.

316

Bibliography

Rope, G. T. : Cats with abnormal tastes ; The Zoologist ; October

1915 ; Series 4, Vol. 19, P. 393. Cats as vegetarians, etc.

Topsell, Edward: The History of Four-footed Beasts; E. Cotes; Lon-

don; 1658. Cats on P. 81 with illustration. A quaint and
amazing book.

Valmont de Bomare, Jacques-Christophe: Dictionnaire raisonne d’his-

toire naturelle; Lyon-Paris; (fourth edition) Year VIII (1800).
Fifteen volumes.

Vickers, H. M.: Origin of the domestic “blotched” tabby cat; Na-

ture; September 8-15, 1910; Vol. 84, Pages 298 and 331.

White, C. A. : Permanence of domestic instinct in the cat ; Knowledge ;

April II, 1884; Vol. 5, P. 243. C. G. D. Roberts and Mary E.
Wilkins Freeman have based stories on this incident of a cat who
made shift to live in the wilds for a year, when deserted, but who
was friendly to humans when they appeared.

Whiting, Phineas V.^: The tortoise-shell cat; American Naturalist;

August 1915; Vol. 49, P. 518.

ANATOMY AND BIOLOGY

Anthony, R. : Considerations anatomiques sur la region sacro-caudale

d’une chatte appartenant a la race dite “ anoure ” de I’ile de Man ;
Bulletins de la Societe d’Anthropologie de Paris; Paris; 1899;
Series IV, Vol. 10, P. 303. Illustrated.

Buchanan, Lieut. Col. A. (I. M. S. M. A. M. D.) : Cats as Plague

Preventers; British Medical Journal; London; October 24, 1908;
Vol. 2, P. 1231.

Darwin, Charles: The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to

Sex; John Murray; London. Two volumes.

Darwin, Charles: The Origin of Species; John Murray; London.

Darwin, Charles: The Variations of Animals and Plants Under Do-

mestication; John Murray; London.

Davison, Alvin: Mammalian Anatomy, with special reference to the

cat; P. Blakiston’s Sons and Co.; Philadelphia; 1903.

Fritz, W. : Uber einen Sinnesapparat am Unterarm der Katze nebst

Bemerkungen fiber den Bau des Sinusbalzes; Zeitschrift fiir wissen-

8I7

Bibliography

schaftliche Zoologie; Leipzig; 1909; Vol. 92, P. 291. Illus-
trated.

Gorham, Frederick P., and Ralph W. Tower: A Laboratory Guide

for the Dissection of the Cat; Charles Scribner’s Sons; New York;
1903. Illustrated with charts drawn by F. P. Gorham.

Hall, G. Stanley and C. E. Browne: The Cat and the Child; Peda-

gogical Seminary; Worcester, Mass.; 1904; Vol. ii, P. 3.

Huber, John B. (M. D.) : The Disease Carrying Cat; Collier’s;

August 14, 1915 ; Vol. 55.

Hyde, Henrietta: Collateral circulation in the cat after ligation of

the postcava; Kansas University Quarterly; July 1900; Vol. ii,
P. 167.

Liadze, Wissarion: Die Backen — und Lippendriisen des Hundes und

der Katze; E. Birkhauser; Basel; 1910. Illustrated.

Lyon, Goffrey A.; Alimentary parasites of felis domestica ; Science;

September 7, 1906; N. S. Vol. 24, P. 313.

Millard, Bailey: War Declared Upon the Cat; Illustrated World;

November 1915; Vol. 24, P. 339. Illustrated with photograph.
Miller, William Snow: Variations in the distribution of the bile duct

of the cat; Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences,
Arts, and Letters; Madison, Wisconsin; 1904; Vol. 14, P. 621.
Mivart, St. George: The Cat: an introduction to the study of back-

boned animals, especially mammals; John Murray; London; 1881.
Charles Scribner’s Sons issued an American edition the same year.
With two hundred illustrations from drawings.

Morris, Harry Waldo: The carotid arteries and their relation to

the circle of willis in the cat ; Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of
Science for 1906; Des Moines; Vol. 13, P. 251.

Osborne, Caroline A.: The Cat: a neglected factor in sanitary science;

Pedagogical Seminary; Worcester, Mass.; 1907; Vol. 14, P. 439.
Reighard, Jacob and H. S. Jennings: The Anatomy of the Cat;
Henry Holt and Co.; New York; 1901. With one hundred and
seventy-three drawings by Louise Burridge Jennings.

Stowell, T. B.: The Cat: the glossopharyngeal, the accessory and

hypoglossal nerves in the domestic cat ; Read before the American
Philosophical Society; March 2, 1888. Pamphlet.

Wilder, Burt G., and S. H. Gage: Anatomical Technology as Ap-

plied to the Domestic Cat; an introduction to human, veterinary,

318

Bibliography

and comparative anatomy; A. S. Barnes and Co.; New York;
1882.

Wilder, Burt Green: The Anatomical Uses of the Cat; D. Appleton

and Co. New York; 1879. Pamphlet.

Wilder, Burt G. : The Brain of the Cat: preliminary account of the

gross anatomy; Read before the American Philosophical Society,
July 15, 1881. Pamphlet with fourteen plates.

PSYCHOLOGY

Burroughs, John: The Animal Mind; Atlantic Monthly; November

1910; Vol. 106, P. 622.

Burroughs, John: Animal Wit Indoors and Out; Atlantic Monthly;

February 1912; Vol. 109, P. 196.

Burroughs, John: Do Animals Think?; Harper’s Magazine; Feb-

ruary 1905; Vol. no, P. 354.

Burroughs, John: The Reasonable but Unreasoning Animals; The

Outlook; December 14, 1907; Vol. 87, P. 809.

Burroughs John: Ways of Nature; Houghton, Mifflin and Co.; Bos-

ton; 1905.

Cesaresco, the Countess Evelyn Martinengo: The Place of Animals in

Human Thought; Charles Scribner’s Sons; New York; 1909.
Illustrated.

Darwin, Charles: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and

Animals; John Murray; London. Illustrated.

Dixon, Royal: The Human Side of Animals; Frederick A. Stokes

Co.; New York; 1918. Illustrated with photographs.

Evans, E. P. : Evolutionary Ethics and Animal Psychology ; D. Ap-

pleton and Co.; New York; 1898.

Groos, Karl: Die Spiele der Thiere; Gustav Fischer; Jena; 1896.

Translated with the co-operation of the author as the Play of Ani-
mals, by E. L. Baldwin, with a preface and an appendix by J. Mark
Baldwin; D. Appleton & Co.; New York; 1898.

Hachet-Souplet: L’Intelligence des Chats: Bulletin de I’lnstitut

General Psych ologique ; Annee HI; Paris; 1903; P. 128.

3^9

Bibliography

Holmes, S. J. : Studies in Animal Behaviour; Richard G. Badger; Bos-
ton; 1916.

Lindsay, W. Lauder; Mind in the Lower Animals; D. Appleton and
Co.; New York; 1880. Two volumes.

Lloyd, Morgan C. : Animal Behaviour; Edward Arnold; London;

1900.

Menault, Ernest: L’Intelligence des Animaux; Paris; 1869 (second

edition). Illustrated by E. Bayard, A. Mesnel, etc. Le Chat,
Pages 264-70. Charles Scribner and Co., in 1869, published an il-
lustrated translation of this book as The Intelligence of Animals.
Mills, T. Wesley: The Cat; The Dog; The Cat and the Dog Com-

pared; McGill University; Papers from the Department of Physi-
ology; Montreal; 1896. Pamphlet.

Mills, Wesley: The Nature and Development of Animal Intelligence;

Macmillan Co.; New York; 1898.

Perrens, F. T. : Memoires de Mes Chattes; Revue Scientifique ; Paris;

1899. Series IV, Vol. 12, Pages 417, 461, and 491, and Vol. 15
(1901), P. 398.

Pierquin de Gembloux; Traite de la Folie des Animaux; Paris, 1859.
Romanes, George John: Animal Intelligence; D. Appleton and Co.;

New York; 1883; Chapter XIV, P. 41 1, is devoted to the cat.
Romanes, George John: Essays (edited by C. Lloyd Morgan) ;

Longmans, Green, and Co.; London; 1897.

Romanes, George John ; Mental Evolution in Animals ; Kegan Paul,
Trench and Co.; 1883.

Shepherd, W. T. ; The discrimination of articulate sounds by cats;

American Journal of Psychology; July 1912; Vol. 23, P. 461.
Shepherd, W. T. : Tests in adaptive intelligence in dogs and cats, as

compared with adaptive intelligence in Rhesus monkeys; American
Journal of Psychology; April 16, 1915; Vol. 26, P. 211.

Smith, E. M.: The Investigation of Mind in Animals; Cambridge

University Press; 1915.

Thompson, Edward P. : The Passions of Animals ; Chapman and

Hall; London; 1851.

Thorndike, Edward L. : Animal Intelligence: Experimental Studies;

Macmillan Co.; New York; 1911. Illustrated with diagrams.
Vevey, Artault de: Des Actes Raisonnes chez le Chat; Bulletin de

rinstitut General Psychologique ; Paris; 1903; Annee HI; P. 13.

320

Bibliography

Washburn, Margaret Floy: The Animal Mind, a text book of com-

parative psychology; Macmillan Co.; New York; 1908.

Watson, Rev. John Selby: The Reasoning Power in Animals; Reeve

and Co.; London; 1867. The cat. Chapter XXV, P. 247; Chap-
ter XXX, P. 322.

VII

LANGUAGE

Bolton, H. Carrington: The Language used in talking to domestic

animals; Judd and Detweiler; Washington, D. C. ; 1897. Pam-
phlet. Cats, P. 40.

Bougeant, G. H. : Amusement philosophique sur le langage des bestes;

Paris; 1739.

Pierquin de Gembloux: Idiomologie des Animaux, ou recherches his-

toriques, anatomiques, physiologiques, philologiques, et glossolog-
iques sur le language des betes; A la Tour de Babel; Paris; 1844.

VIII

HUMANITARIAN

Brewster, Edwin Tenney: The City of 4,000,000 cats; McClure’s

Magazine; New York; 1912; Vol. 39, P. 54. Illustrated with
photographs.

Gohier, Urbain: Les Betes; Librairie Leon Vanier; Paris; 19 ii. Les

cbats au cirque, P. 34.

Helps, Sir Arthur: Some talk about animals and their masters;

Strahan and Co.; London; 1873.

Kindness to Animals, illustrated by stories and anecdotes; W. and R.
Chambers; London and Edinburgh; 1877. Anecdotes of cats, P.

85.

Salt, H. S. : Animals’ Rights ; with an essay on vivisection in America

by Albert Leffingwell, M. D. ; Macmillan and Co.; New York
and London; 1894.

321

Bibliography

CATS AND BIRDS

Barrett, E. N. : The Bird-Cat Question; The Outlook; December

27, 1916; Vol. 1 14, P. 965.

Brewster, William: A Blameless Cat; Bird-Lore; May 1918; Vol.

20, P. 21 1.

Cats and Birds; Bird-Lore; September 1915; Vol. 17, P. 408.
Chapouille, Arthur: A plea for puss and her victims; Good House-

keeping; May 1911; Vol. 52, P. 564.

Forbush, Edward Howe: The Domestic Cat: bird killer, mouser, and

destroyer of wild life; means of utilizing and controlling it;
Wright and Potter Printing Co; Boston; 1916. This is a pam-
phlet issued by the State of Massachusetts. Forbush is (or was)
the State Ornithologist. Illustrated with drawings and photo-
graphs.

Forbush, Edward Howe: Facts About Cats; Bird-Lore; March 1915;

Vol. 17, P. 165.

Forbush, Edward Howe: What are we going to do about the cat?;

Ladies’ Home Journal; March 1917.

The House-Cat Indicted; Current Opinion; April 1917; Vol. 62,
P. 289.

Hunt, Emily G. : How to enjoy both birds and cats; Country Life

in America; February 1915; Vol. 27, P. 52. Illustrated with
photographs.

Mason, Walt: The Conservation of Cats; Collier’s; November 8,

1913; Vol. 52.

Pearson, T. Gilbert: Cats and Birds; Art World; May 1917; Vol.

2, P. 202. Illustrated with photographs.

Professor R. J. H. de Loach writes about the house cat ; Home
Progress; March 1914; Vol. 3, P. 326.

A Question for unprejudiced consideration: the house cat; Bird-Lore;
January 1915; Vol. 17, P. 54.

Raymond, William: The marauding cat; Country Life (English);

June 5, 1915 ; Vol. 37, P. 780. With four illustrations from photo-
graphs.

322

Bibliography

LAW

Cat, a “ domestic animal ” and “ property ” ; The American Law
Review; December 1915; Vol. 49, P. 917.

Evans, E. P. : The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of

Animals; William Heinemann; London; 1906. Illustrated with
engravings.

Ingham, John H. : The Law of Animals, a treatise on property in

animals, wild and domestic, and the rights and responsibilities aris-
ing therefrom; T. and J. W. Johnson; Philadelphia; 1900.
Rogers, R. Vashon: Cats; The Green Bag; Boston; August 1891;

Vol. 3, P. 350.

Rolfe, Gertrude B. : The Cat in Law; North American Review;
February 1895; Vol. 160, P. 251.

FOLKLORE AND RELIGION

Berenger-Feraud, Laurent-Jean-Baptiste: Reminiscences populaires de

la Provence; Ernest Leroux; Paris, 1885.

Berenger-Feraud, Laurent-Jean-Baptiste: Superstitions et Survivances,

etudiees au point de vue de leur origine et de leurs transforma-
tions; Ernest Leroux; Paris; 1896. Two volumes.

Bergen, Fanny D. : Animal and Plant Lore, collected from the oral

tradition of English speaking people, with an introduction by
Joseph Y, Bergen; Houghton, Mifflin, and Co.; Boston; 1899.

Buckner, E. D. : The Immortality of Animals, and the relation of man

as guardian from a Biblical and philosophical hypothesis; George
W. Jacobs and Co.; Philadelphia; 1903.

Budge, E. A. Wallis: The Gods of the Egyptians or Studies in Egyp-

tian Mythology; Methuen and Co.; London; 1904. With ninety-
eight coloured plates and one hundred and thirty-one illustrations
in the text.

Campbell, John Gregorson: Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands

of Scotland; James MacLehose and Sons; Glasgow; 1900.

323

Bibliography

Collin de Plancy, J. : Dictionnaire Infernal; Paul Mellier; Paris;

1844 (third edition).

Conway, Moncure Daniel: Demonology and Devil-lore; Henry Holt

and Co.; New York; 1879. Two volumes with numerous illus-
trations.

Dyer, T. F. Thiselton: The Cat and its Folk-lore; Gentleman’s
Magazine; May 1882; N. S. Vol. 28, P. 604.

Dyer, T. F. Thiselton: English Folk-lore; Hardwicke and Bogue;

London; 1878.

Ennemoser, Joseph: The History of Magic; translated from the Ger-

man by William Howitt; Bohn’s Library; London; 1854; Two
volumes.

Fitzgerald, David: The Cat in Legend and Myth; Belgravia; Lon-

don; November 1885; Vol. 58, P. 98.

Fornaro, Carlo de: White Lotus: the legend of the cat’s eye; Marcus

and Co.; New York; 1901. Illustrations by the author.

Frazer, J. G. : The Golden Bough, a study in magic and religion;

Macmillan and Co. ; London. Third edition in twelve volumes,
1911-15.

Gubernatis, Angelo de: Zoological Mythology, or the legends of

animals; Triibner and Co.; London; 1872. Two volumes. Vol.
2, Chapter VII, P. 41, for the cat.

Hamel, Frank: Human Animals; Frederick A. Stokes Co.; New

York; 1915.

Hargrove, Ethel C. : The Psychic Significance of the Cat; Occult
Review; London; 1917; Vol. 25, P. 337.

Harwood, W. S. : The mummification of cats in ancient Egypt ; Scien-

tific American; June 9, 1900; Vol. 82, P. 361.

Hazlitt, William Carew: Faiths and Folklore: a dictionary; a new

and alphabetically arranged edition of Brand’s Antiquities; Reeves
and Turner; London; 1905.

Hearn, Lafcadio: Japanese Fairy Tales; The Boy Who Drew Cats,

P. 29; Boni and Liveright; New York; 1918. Originally pub-
lished in Japan with charming illustrations.

Hone, William: The Every-Day Book; Thomas Tegg; London ; 1826-

1830. Three volumes.

James, Hartwell: The Cat and the Mouse: a book of Persian fairy

tales; edited with an introduction by Hartwell James; Henry

324

Bibliography

Altemus Co.; Philadelphia; 1906. With forty illustrations by
John R. Neill.

Kipling, John Lockwood; Beast and Man in India, a popular sketch of
Indian animals in their relations with the people; Macmillan and
Co.; London; 1891. Cats, P. 282. Illustrated with drawings.

Lean’s Collectanea: Collections by Vincent Stuckey Lean of proverbs,

English and foreign, folklore, and superstitions, also compilations
towards dictionaries of proverbial phrases and words, old and dis-
used; J. W. Arrowsmith ; Bristol; 1902. Five volumes.

Meller, Walter Clifford: A Brief for Animal Immortality; G. Bell

and Sons; London; 1911.

O’Donnell, Elliott: Animal Ghosts; William Rider and Sons; Lon-

don; 1913. Cats, P. 3-56.

Phipson, Emma: Animal Lore in Shakespeare’s Time; Kegan Paul,

Trench and Co.; London; 1883.

Ralston, W. R. S. : Krilof and his fables ; Strahan and Co. ; London ;

1869. The following are cat stories: The Pike and the Cat,

P. 27; The Cook and the Cat, P. 45; The Cat and the Night-
ingale, P. 167; and The Wolf and the Cat, P. 171. Illustrated
with drawings.

The Rat’s Plaint: translated from the Chinese by Archibald Little;
T. Hasegawa; Tokyo; 1891. Illustrated with many drawings in
colour.

Rozan, Charles; Le chat dans les proverbes; Monde Moderne; Paris;
1901; Vol. 13, P. 650- Illustrated with drawings.

Visser, Dr. M. W. de: The Dog and the Cat in Japanese Super-

stition; Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan; 1909; Vol.
37, P- I-

Wood, Rev. J. G. : Man and Beast: Here and Hereafter; George

Routledge and Sons; London; 1875 ( ?).

XII

FICTION

Aesop: Three Hundred Fables, translated by Rev. Geo. Fyler Town-

send; George Routledge and Sons; London; 1867. The Cat and
the Cock, P. 27; The Cat and the Birds, P. 46; The Cat and the

Bibliography

Mice; P. 103; and The Cat and Venus, P. 214. This edition
is illustrated by Harrison Weir.

Alden, W. L. : The Cats of Piacenza; Harper’s Monthly; August

1906; Vol. 1 13, P. 398. Illustrated by May Wilson Preston.

Alden, W. L. : Cat Tales: eleven somewhat fantastic stories about

cats; Digby, Long and Co.; London; 1905. Illustrated by Louis
Wain.

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey: The Story of a Cat, translated from the

French of fimile de la Bedolliere; Houghton, Osgood and Co.;
Boston; 1878. With many designs in silhouette by Hopkins.
There is a French nursery rhyme on this subject which you may
find on P. 234 of Miss Repplier’s The Fireside Sphinx, or trans-
lated on P. 169 of Miss Repplier’s The Cat.

Allen, Willis Boyd: The Head of Pasht; E. P. Dutton and Co.; New

York ; 1900. There is a head of Pasht on the cover and on the title
page.

Archibald the Cat, and other sea yarns, by “ the old sailor ” ; “ out of
The World”; published by the New York World; New York;
1878. The title story is the only cat story. The illustrations are
by F. S. Church.

Babcock, Edwina Stanton: From the Diary of a Cat; Harper’s Maga-

zine; August 1904; Vol. 109, P. 487. Illustrations by Stroth-
mann.

Bacon, Peggy: The True Philosopher and other cat tales; The

Four Seas Co.; Boston; 1919. Illustrated with etchings by the
author.

Balzac, Honore de: Peines de coeur d’une chatte anglaise; first pub-

lished in Vie Privee et Publique des Animaux. In the edition of
Balzac (Oeuvres Complies) issued by Calmann Levy, Paris, 1879,
this story is to be found in Vol. 21, Oeuvres Diverses.

Bell, J. J. : Mr. Pennycook’s Boy; Harper and Brothers; New York;

1905. Poor Pussy, P. 263.

Bell, J. J. : Wanted — A Pussy-Mew; The Bellman; March 3, 1917;

Vol. 22, P. 236.

Bierce, Ambrose: Can Such Things Be?: Collected Works; Neale

Publishing Co.; New York and Washington; 1910. John Mor-
tonson’s Funeral, P. 252, is a cat story.

Bierce, Ambrose: Fantastic Fables; G. P. Putnam’s Sons; New York;

326

Bibliography

1899; The Cat and the King, P. 27; The Cat and the Youth,
P. 159; The Cat and the Birds, P. 161.

Blackwood, Algernon: The Empty Sleeve; The London Magazine;

January 1911; P. 552.

Blackwood, Algernon: John Silence: Physician Extraordinary;

John W. Luce and Co.; Boston; 1909. Case I: A Psychical In-
vasion, and Case II: Ancient Sorceries, are cat stories.

Blackwood, Algernon: Pan’s Garden; Macmillan and Co.; London;

1912. The Attic, P. 137, is a cat story. Illustrated by W.
Graham Robertson.

Brouse, Marian M.: The cat that tried to be stylish; Woman’s Home

Companion; April 1914. Illustrated by Kerr Eby.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward: Eugene Aram.

Burgess, Gelett: The White Cat; A. Wessels Co.; New York; 1908.
This is a story of dissociated personality in which the fairy tale
of The White Cat is used as a symbol.

Caillot, Jules Severin: Contes apres les contes; Plon-Nourrit et cie. ;

Paris; 1919. La Chatte Blanche, P. 67.

Carroll, Lewis: Alice in Wonderland. Illustrated by John Tenniel.

Carroll, Lewis: Through the Looking Glass. Illustrated by John

Tenniel.

Carruth, Hayden: The Adventures of Jones; Harper and Brothers;

New York; 1895. The Cat Motor, P. 7 and The Wild-cat
Frightener, P. 48.

Carryl, Guy Wetmore: Zut, and other Parisians; Houghton, Mifflin

Co.; Boston; 1903. The title story is a cat story.

Chambers, Robert W. : The King in Yellow; F. Tennyson Neely;
Chicago — New York; 1895. The Repairer of Reputations and
The Street of the Four Winds are cat stories.

Corrothers, James David: The Black Cat Club, Negro humor and

folklore; Funk and Wagnalls; New York; 1902. Illustrated by
J. K. Bryans.

Davey, Robert M.: The Pinckney Street Cats; New England Maga-

zine; September 1911 ; N. S. Vol. 45, P. 40.

Ensign, Hermon Lee: Lady Lee and other animal stories; A. C.

McClurg; Chicago; 1902. Union Square Jim, P. 67 and Baby
and the Kitten, P. 17 1 are cat stories. Illustrated by J. Carter
Beard.

327

Bibliography

Felissa: or the life and opinions of a kitten of sentiment; J. Harris;
London; i8ii. With twelve coloured plates. Methuen and Co.,
London, reprinted this book in 1903.

Fernald, Chester B: The Cat and the Cherub, and other stories;

The Century Co.; New York; 1896. One-Two, the white and
blue Angora, appears in The Cat and the Cherub and The Cruel
'Fhousand Years. With one illustration by Grace Wetherell.
The cover design depicts the cat and the cherub.

France, Anatole: Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard; Calmann-Levy ;

Paris.

Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins: Understudies; Harper and Brothers;

New York; 1901. The Cat is the title of the story.

Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins: A Humble Romance and other stories;

Harper and Brothers; New York; 1887. An Object of Love,
P. 266, is a cat story.

George, W. L. : Blind Alley; T. Fisher Unwin; London; 1919.

Graham, R. B. Cunninghame: Success, and other sketches; Duckworth

and Co.; London; 1902. Terror, P. 109.

Greene, Frederick Stuart: The Cat of the Cane-Brake; Metropolitan

Magazine; August 1916; Vol. 44. Illustrations by Worth
Brehm.

The Guardian Cat: Every Saturday; October I2, 1872. Reprinted

from Chambers’s Journal.

Hamilton, Allan McLane: Herr von Striempfell’s Experiment;

The Century; April 1891 ; Vol. 41, P. 89.

Hamm, Margherita Arlina: The Cat Coquette; The Century; Oc-

tober 1905; Vol. 70, P. 823. Illustrations by Jay Hambidge.
Hearn, Lafcadio: Fantastics and Other Fancies; Houghton, Mifflin

and Co.; Boston; 1914. The Little Red Kitten, P. 33.

Henty, G. A.: The Cat of Bubastes: a tale of ancient Egypt; Blackie

and Son; London; 1889.

Hubbard, Elbert: Pig-Pen Pete, or Some Chums of Mine; Roy-

crofters Shop; East Aurora, N. Y. ; 1914. The Black Cat, P.
157; Our Emmiline, P. 169.

H uysmans, J. K. : En Rade ; Plon-Nourrit et Cie ; Paris.

Jackson, Gabrielle E.: Little Comrade: the story of a cat, and other
animal stories; D. Appleton and Co.; New York; 1905. With
a picture of Little Comrade. Juvenile.

328

Bibliography

Jackson, Helen (H. H.) : Cat Stories: Letters from a Cat; Mammy

Tittleback and her Family; The Hunter Cats of Connorloa;
Little Brown and Co.; Boston; 1903. The illustrations for the
first two stories are by Addie Ledyard; those for the last from
photographs and drawings. Juvenile.

Janvier, Thomas A.: From the South of France; Harper and Broth-

ers; New York; 1912. Illustrations by Frank Craig. Madame
Jolicoeur’s Cat, P. 137.

Janvier, Thomas A.: In the Sargasso Sea; Harper and Brothers; New

York; 1898. Cat in Chapter XXXII, P. 236 et seqq.

Janvier, Thomas A. : The Passing of Thomas, and other stories ;

Harper and Brothers; New York; 1900. The title story is a
cat story. Illustrations by Charles Dana Gibson.

Janvier, Thomas A.: Stories of Old New Spain; D. Appleton and

Co.; New York; 1891. San Antonio of the Gardens is a cat story.
Kari: Madame Tabby’s Establishment; Macmillan and Co.; London;

1886. Illustrations by Louis Wain. Juvenile.

Keller, Gottfried: Spiegel, das Katzchen, in Die Leute von Seldwyla;

1856.

Kendall, May: Billy; Longman’s Magazine; December 1903; Vol. 43,

P. 163.

Kipling, Rudyard: In Black and White: The Sending of Dana Da

is a cat story.

Kipling, Rudyard: Just So Stories: The Cat that Walked by Himself.

With illustrations by the author.

Knatchbull-Hugessen, E. H. (M. P.) : Puss-Cat Mew, and other

stories for my children; Harper and Brothers; New York; 1871.
With illustrations. The first story is the only cat story. Juv-
enile.

Loti, Pierre: Le Livre de la Pitie et de la Mort; Calmann-Levy ; Paris.

This book contains two cat stories: Une bHe galeuse, P. 27, and

Vies de deux chattes, P. 47. The latter, translated by M. B.
Richards as Lives of Two Cats and illustrated by C. E. Allen,
was published by Dana Estes and Co.; Boston, 1902.

Loti, Pierre: Le Mariage de Loti; Calmann-Levy; Paris.

Lyman, Edward Branch: Me’ow Jones, Belgian Refugee Cat, his

own true tale as written down by E. B. L. ; George H. Doran ;
New York; 1917. Illustrated by Julia Daniels.

329

Bibliography

Mirbeau, Octave; La Vache Tachetee; Ernest Flammarion; Paris.

Le petit gardeur de vaches, P. 40, is a cat story.

Morley, Charles: Peter: a cat o’ one tail: his life and adventures;

G. P. Putnam’s Sons; New York-London; 1892. Illustrated by
Louis Wain, Peter’s proprietor.

Mulford, Prentice: The Family Cat; Hood’s Comic Annual for

1874; London; P. 50.

A parable for philanthropists: Atlantic Monthly; December 1919; Vol.

124, P. 861.

Patteson, S. Louise: Pussy Meow; the autobiography of a cat, with

an introduction by Sarah K. Bolton; George W. Jacobs and Co.;
Philadelphia; 1901. Illustrated with drawings and photographs,
Juvenile.

Peple, Edward: A Night Out; Moffat, Yard and Co.; New York;

1909. Frontispiece by R. L. Goldberg.

Picard, Gaston : La confession du chat ; with a preface by J.-H. Rosny,

aine; Albin Michel; Paris; 1919. The title story is the only cat
story.

Pinski David: Temptations; Brentano’s; New York; 1919. The

Black Cat.

Poe, Edgar Allan : The Black Cat.

Polko, Elise: Musical Sketches; Sturgis and Walton Co.; New York;

1909. Translated from the fifteenth German edition. The Cat’s
Fugue, P. 82. This is the story of Scarlatti and his cat.

Porter, Eleanor TL: The Tic that Binds; Houghton, Mifflin Co.;

1919. Illustrated by Helen Mason Grose. The Cat and the
Painter, P. i.

Porter, Eleanor H.: The Cat that played Cupid; New England

Magazine; June 1905; N. S. Vol. 32, P. 461.

Powell, G. H.: Animal Episodes, and studies in sensation; George

Redway; London; 1896. The Blue Dryad, P. 68, is a cat story.
Puckett, G. A.; Ten Kittens; Burton Publishing Co.; Kansas City,
Mo. Illustrated by Helen Walley.

Pyle, Katherine: Stories of Humble Friends; American Book Co.;

1902. Illustrated by the author. Little Brown Hen, P. 13;
Flora and her cat, P. 118; Limpety, P. 138; What became of
the kittens, P. 178. Juvenile. ,

Rameau, Jean: Le Chat Nouveau-Riche; Le Petit Journal; Paris;

330

Bibliography

December g, 1919. Translated by William R. McPherson as
The Nouveau Riche Cat this story appeared in the New York
Tribune, February 15, 1920.

Rideout, Henry Milner: The Siamese Cat; Duffield and Co.; New

York; 1919.

Robert, Charles G. D. : Neighbours Unknown; Macmillan Co.; New

York; 1911. Illustrated by Paul Branscom. How a cat played
Robinson Crusoe, P. 173.

Roberts, Morley: The Man Who Stroked Cats, and other stories;

Eveleigh Nash; London; 1912. The title story is the only cat
story.

Russell, Robert Howard: The Delft Cat, and other stories; R. H.

Russell; New York; 1896. Illustrations by F. Berkeley Smith.
Juvenile.

Saltus, Edgar: Purple and Fine Women; Ainslie Publishing Co.;

New York; 1903. The Top of the Heap, P. 207, is a cat story.

Saunders, Marshall: Pussy Black-Face or the story of a kitten and

her friends: a book for boys and girls; L. C. Page and Co.;

Boston; 1913. Illustrations by Diantha Horne Marlowe. Juven-
ile.

Seton, Ernest Thompson; Animal Heroes: being the histories of a
cat, a dog, a pigeon, a lynx, two wolves, and a reindeer and in
elucidation of the same over two hundred drawings by the author;
the designs for cover, title-page, and general makeup by Grace
Gallatin Seton; Charles Scribner’s Sons; New York; 1905. The
Slum Cat is the first story.

Sologub, Feodor: The Little Demon. Translated by John Cournos

and Richard Aldington; Martin Seeker; London; igi6.

Southworth, May E. : The Great Small Cat and Others: seven tales;

Paul Elder and Co.; San Francisco; 1914. Illustrated with pho-
tographs and decorated by Pedro J. Lemos.

Stables, Gordon: Shireen and her Friends: pages from the life of a

Persian cat; Jarrold and Sons; London; 1894. Three full-page
illustrations by Harrison Weir. This book is dedicated to Swin-
burne and his poem. To a Cat, is reprinted in it. L. C. Page
and Co. in Boston printed an American edition.

Swain, Miranda Eliot: Daisy, the autobiography of a cat; Noyes

Brothers; Boston; 1900. With a photograph of Daisy.

331

Bibliography

Tarkington, Booth: Penrod and Sam; Doubleday, Page and Co.;

New York; 1916. Illustrated by Worth Brehm.

Twain, Mark; Dick Baker’s Cat; Screams; 1871. Later incorpor-
ated in Roughing It; American Publishing Co.; Hartford; 1872;
P- 439-

Twain, Mark: Jim Wolfe and the Cats; New York Sunday Mer-

cury; 1867; Garrett’s 100 Choice Selections, No. 17; 1879; This
story was also published in Hood’s Comic Annual for 1874 under
the title, A Yankee Story by G. R. Wadleigh. It is included in
the anthology, Werner’s Readings: Cats and Kittens, P. 244.

Twain, Mark: The Man Who Fought Cats; Practical Jokes; John

Camden Hotten; London; 1872.

Twain, Mark: The Stolen White Elephant, etc.; James R. Osgood

and Co.; Boston; Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion,
P. 74, for some Bermuda cats.

Vie Privee et Publique des Animaux; etudes de moeurs contemporains,
publiees sous la direction de M. P.-J. Stahl, avec la collaboration
de Messieurs de Balzac, L. Baude, E. de la Bedolliere, P. Bernard,
J. Janin, Ed. Lemoine, Charles Nodier, George Sand, L’Heretier,
Alfred de Musset, Paul de Musset, Madame M. Menessier-Nodier,
Louis Viardot. J. Hetzel ; Paris; 1842. Two volumes. Illustra-
tions by Grandville. The cat stories are Peines de coeur d’une
chatte anglaise by Balzac; Vol. I, P. 89, and Peines de coeur d’une
chatte frangaise by P.-J. Stahl; Vol. 2, P. 165. The edition of
1867 is in one volume. Translated by J. Thomson as Public and
Private Life of Animals, this book was published in London by
Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington in 1877, but Balzac’s
story is omitted from this version. Most of Grandville’s draw-
ings are retained.

Weyman, Stanley J. : The Cat and the King; McClure’s; October

1895; Vol. 5, P. 438.

White, Eliza Orne: Brothers in Fur; Houghton, Mifflin Co.; Bos-

ton; 1910. Illustrated with photographs. Juvenile.

Wilkinson, Elizabeth Hays; Peter and Polly; Doubleday, Page and
Co.; New York; 1912. Illustrated with photographs in colour
by Cornelia Clarke. Juvenile.

Willy et Colette Willy: Claudine a I’Ecole; Paul Ollendorff; Paris.

Willy et Colette Willy: Claudine a Paris; Paul Ollendorff; Paris.

332

Bibliography

Willy et Colette Willy: Claudine en Menage; Mercure de France;

Paris; 1902.

Willy et Colette Willy: Claudine s’en va; Paul Ollendorff; Paris.

Woodrow, Mrs. Wilson: The Cat and the Countess; American

Magazine (Leslie’s Monthly); August 1905; Vol. 60, P. 373.
Illustrated with drawings.

Worts, George F. : The Cat and the Burglar; Everybody’s Magazine;

April 1920; Vol. 42, No. 4, P. 54.

Zola, fimile: Nouveaux Contes a Ninon; Bibliotheque-Charpentier ;

Paris. This book contains the story Le Paradis des Chats. Trans-
lated by Edward Vizetelly as Stories for Ninon this book was
issued in London in 1895 by William Heinemann.

XIII

ESSAYS

About Cats; London Society; January 1872; Vol. 21, P. 69. Signed,
Philo-felis.

Achard, Emile: The history of my friends or home life with animals;

translated from the French; G. P. Putnam’s Sons; New York;
1875. Illustrated with drawings. Matapon the First, P. 180.
Addison, Joseph: Cat-calls; The Spectator; Thursday, April 24,

1712.

Addison, Joseph: Moll White and her cat; The Spectator; Saturday,

July 4, 1711.

Ailurophobia : Current Literature; August 1905; Vol. 39, P. 186.

Quotations from S. Weir Mitchell and Andrew Lang.

Affable Hawk: Cats; The New Statesman: Books in General;

February 28, 1920.

Anecdotes of the Cat: Chambers’s Miscellany; Edinburgh; Vol. 6.

Atkins, J. B.: Side-Shows; Christophers; London; 1908. The New

Cat, P. I.

Atom: Cats; Everyman; London; November 8, 1919.

Barnicoat, C. A.: The Cat and the Human; Temple Bar; London;

1906; N. S. Vol. 2, P. 162.

333

Bibliography

Bates, Katherine Lee: Sigurd Our Golden Collie and other com-

rades of the road; E. P. Dutton and Co.; 1919. Catastrophes,

P. 324.

Belloc, Hilaire: On Nothing and Kindred Subjects; Methuen and

Co. ; London ; 1908. On Them is an essay on cats.

Benson, Margaret: The Soul of a Cat, and other stories; William

Heinemann; London; 1901. Illustrations from photographs and
drawings by Henriette Ronner. G. P. Putnam Sons issued the
American edition in New York the same year. The papers of
interest to cat-lovers are: Preface, P. V.; The Soul of a

Cat, P. I ; The Mysterious Ra, P. 85 ; Mentu, P. 97 ; Epilogue,
P. 141.

Borrow, George: Wild Wales. The ecclesiastical cat appears in

Chapter VII and also elsewhere in the book.

Boyle, Frederick: Taming Animals; Living Age; June 3, 1911; Vol.

269, P. 599. From the Cornhill Magazine.

Broderip, W. J. : Zoological Recreations; Henry Colburn; London;

1849 (new edition with alterations). Cats, Part II, P. 191.
Bullen, Frank T. : Cats on Board Ship; The Spectator; April 8,

1899; Vol. 82, P. 484.

C. T. L. : Some cats I have known: a reminiscence; Old and New;

Boston; April 1873; Vol. 7, P. 462.

The Cat; Household Words; April 18, 1857; Vol. 15, P. 369. This
is a review of Lady Cust’s book with some additional matter.
The Cat — Ancient and Modern; Chambers’s Journal; March 16,
1878; Vol. 55, P. 171.

Cats; Chambers’s Journal ; July 3, 1875 ; Vol. 52, P. 430.

Cats; Chambers’s Journal; March 23, 1872; Vol. 49, P. 177.

Cats: with some account of the Tooten Toon; Chambers’s Journal;
April II, 1868; Vol. 45, P. 225. This is a review of Ross’s
book with a good deal of additional matter.

Cat Stories; All the Year Round; June 7, 1862; Vol. 7, P. 308.

The Cat About Town; The Spectator; Vol. 80, P. 197.

The Cat and the Bell-Collar; Atlantic Monthly; August 1913; Vol.
1 12; P. 282.

Cats in Catholic Ritual; The Month; London; August 1896; Vol. 87,
P. 487.

Cats and Dogs; Leisure Hour; December 6, 1862; Vol. 2, P. 788.

334

Bibliography

Cats as Government Servants; World Today; December 1910; Vol.

19, P. 1416. Illustrated with photographs.

The Cat in Literature; The Spectator; Vol. 80, P. 300.

The Cat as Wild Animal; The Spectator; September 12, 1896; Vol.
77, P- 333-

Catacaustic Reflections; Atlantic Monthly; February 1915; Vol. 115,

P. 285.

The Cat as an Unconscious Humorist; The Spectator; August 2, 1890;
Vol. 65, P. 145.

The Cat Lady; The Outlook; June 10, 1911 ; Vol. 98, P. 287.

The Cat Show at the Crystal Palace ; Saturday Review ; October 20,
1883; Vol. 56, P. 500. This was the fifteenth annual cat show
in London.

A Chapter on Cats; Chambers’s Journal; January 10, 1852; Vol. 17,
P. 27.

A Chapter on Cats; The Knickerbocker Magazine; December 1839, P.

556-

Clark, Harriet Woodward: An unappreciated suburbanite; Suburban

Life; September 1907; Vol. 5, P. 172. Illustrated with a photo-
graph.

A Climbing Cat; The Living Age; December 21, 1912; Vol. 275,
P. 759. From The Spectator.

Concerning Cats; Appleton’s Journal; New York; May 27, 1871;
Vol. 5, P. 613.

Concerning Cats; Leisure Hour; 1883; Vol. 32, Pages 48, 94, 161,
224. Illustrated with drawings.

Conway, W. M. : The Cats of Ancient Egypt ; English Illustrated

Magazine; January 1890; Vol. 7, P. 251.

Coulson, G. J. A.: Cats; New Eclectic; Baltimore; August 1869;

Vol. 5, P. 172.

Curiosities of Cats; Once a Week; London; December 26, 1863; Vol.
10, P. 16.

Cursory Cogitations Concerning Cats; Blackwood’s; November 1839;
Vol. 46, P. 653.

Day, Clarence, jr. : The Great Cats in This Simian World; Alfred

A. Knopf; New York; 1920. Illustrated by the author.

De Forest, J. W. : The Cats of Antiquity; Atlantic Monthly; May

1874; Vol. 33, P- 556.

335

Bibliography

De Forest, J. W. : Modern Cats: Atlantic Monthly; June 1874;

Vol. 33, P. 737.

Docquois, Georges: Bctes et Gens de Lettres; Flammarion; Paris;

1895. With a cover in colours hy Steinlen.

Douglas, A. Donald: Of Cats; The Forum; March 1914; Vol. 51,

P. 415.

Dumas, Alexandre : My Pets, translated by Alfred Allinson from

Mes Betes; with sixteen illustrations by V. Lecomte; the Mac-
millan Co.; New York; 1909.

Durand, James: A Household Pet; Cosmopolitan; January 1887; Vol.

2, P. 312.

Employment for Cats; The Living Age; October 15, 1910; Vol. 267,
P. 184. From The Spectator.

A Few Words About Cats; Temple Bar; November 1881; Vol. 63,
P. 378.

Froude, James Anthony: Short Studies on Great Subjects: First

Series; Longmans Green; London; 1867 (second edition). The
Cat’s Pilgrimage, P. 419.

Gautier, Theophile: Baudelaire and the Cat; in Gautier’s preface

to Fleurs du Mai, Pages 33, 34, 35; Calmann-Levy ; Paris.

Goldsmith, Gertrude: The Serpent in Eden; Suburban Life; July

1913: Vol. 17, P. 12. Illustrated with photographs.

Gosse, Edmund: Gossip in a Library. Cats is an essay on Augustin

Paradis de Moncrif.

Graves, C. L. : The Diversions of a Music Lover ; Macmillan and

Co.; London; 1904; A Musical Celebrity, P. 219.

G. Y. : “Mole”; The Spectator; January 13, 1912; Vol. 108, P. 51.

Hamerton, Philip Gilbert: Chapters on Animals; Seeley, Jackson and

Halliday; London; 1874. With twenty etchings by J. Veyrassat
and Karl Bodmer. Chapter IV, P. 43, is devoted to cats.

Havet, Mireille: La maison dans I’oeil du chat; Georges Cres et cie;
Paris; 1917. Avertissement de Colette Willy. Dessins de
Jeanne de Lanux. Two pieces in this book concern cats, the
title paper, P. 65, and Le chat, P. 15 1.

Hearn, Lafcadio: Kotto: being Japanese curios with sundry cob-

webs; Macmillan and Co.; New York; 1902. Illustrations by
Genjiro Yeto. Pathological, P. 217, is a cat paper.

336

Bibliography

Herendeen, Anne: The Case of Mouser vs. Bowser; Everybody’s

Magazine; July 1919; Vol. 41, P. 41. Illustrations by Oliver
Herford.

The History of Cats; Saturday Review; May 6, 1882; Vol. 53, P. 558.
Hopkins, Tighe: Cats; Leisure Hour; 1895; V^ol. 44, P. 107. Illus-

trations by Louis Wain and A. Seiger.

Howe, Arthur L. : Abolishing the stray cat nuisance; Suburban Life;

January 1911; Vol. 12, P. 20. Illustrated with photographs.
Howells, W. D. : Literature and Life; Harper and Brothers; New

York; 1902. Jim, in Staccato Notes of a Vanished Summer,
P. 261.

Hunt, Leigh: The Cat by the Fire; first published in The Seer, this

essay is to be found in the volume of selected papers in Walter
Scott’s Camelot series.

In Praise of Cats; Living Age; January 9, 1909; Vol. 260, P. 124.
From The Nation.

Jerome, Jerome K. : Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow; Field and Tuer ;

London. On Cats and Dogs, P. 77.

Jerome, Jerome K. : Novel Notes; Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton Kent;

and Co.; London; 1893. Chapter VI (illustrated by Louis
Wain) is devoted to cats.

Kidd, W. : Love me, love my cat; Leisure Hour; November 28, 1861 ;

Vol. 10, P. 75.

L. J. S.: Cats and Poets; Lippincott’s ; February 1885; Vol. 35, P.
177.

Lang, Andrew: At the Sign of the Ship; Longman’s Magazine; Vol.

2, P. 463; February 1888 (Puss in Boots) ; P. 571; March 1888
(Arsinoe’s Cats); Vol. 25, P. 215; December 1894; 320;

January 1895 (cats and dogs) ; Vol. 31, P. 92; November 1897;
P. 465; March 1898; P. 558; April 1898 ( ailuro phobia ) ; Vol.
34, P. 280; July 1899; P. 380; August 1899 (with Walter Pol-
lock’s poem, Le chat devant la guerre) ; Vol. 35, P. 93; Novem-
ber 1899; Vol. 44, P. 85; May 1904; Vol. 45, P. 382; February
1905. So far as I know these extremely interesting notes by An-
drew Lang have not been collected in book form.

Larrabee, W. H.: Cats and their Friendships; Popular Science

Monthly; New York; May 1890; Vol. 37, P. 91. Illustrated
with drawings.

337

Bibliography

Larrabee, W. H.: The Intelligence of Cats; Popular Science

Monthly; January 1891; Vol. 38, P. 368.

Lautard, Henri: Chiens et Chats: la sympathie envers les animaux;

Le Correspondent; Paris; 1906; Vol. 219 (N. S. Vol. 183), P.
999-

The License of the Cat; Living Age; May 3, 1913; Vol. 277, P. 309.
From The Spectator.

Lord, J. K. : Cats; Leisure Hour; July 27, 1867; Vol. 16, P. 474.

Loti, Pierre: Reflets sur la Sombre Route; Calmann-Levy ; Paris.
Chiens et Chats, P. 49. Translated by Fred Rothwell as On
Life’s Byways, this book was issued in London in 1914 by G. Bell
and Sons, Ltd. Dogs and Cats is on P. 34.

Lucas, E. V.: Landmarks; Macmillan Co.; New York; 1914. The
Black Cat, Chap. X, P. 60.

Lynd, Robert: The Book of This and That; Mills and Boon, Ltd.;

London; 1915. On Black Cats, P. 137.

Marquis, Don: Prefaces; D. Appleton and Co.; New York; 1919.

Preface to a Cat Show Catalogue, P. 57.

Maupassant, Guy de: La Petite Roque; Paul Ollendorff; Paris. Sur
les chats, P. 185.

Mayo, Isabella Fyvie: The Calumniated Cat; Humane Review; Lon-

don; April 1902; P. 38.

Miller, Olive Thorne (Harriet Mann Miller) : Upon the Tree Tops;

Houghton, Mifflin and Co.; Boston; 1897. The Idyl of an
Empty Lot, Chap. XI, P. 192, is about cats.

Mitchell, S. Weir: Cat Fear; Ladies’ Home Journal; March 1906.

Moses, Joseph Winthrop: Something About Cats; New Eclectic;

Baltimore; November 1870; Vol. 7, P. 604.

My Cats; Once a Week; London; August 22, 1863; Vol. 9, P. 245.
Notes on Cats; The Spectator; August 2, 1913; Vol. 3, P. 171.

On Black Cats; London Magazine; March 1822; Vol. 5, P. 285.
Our Family Cats; Leisure Hour; February 19, 1857; Vol. 6, P. 117.
Outside Pets; Blackwood; December 1903; Vol. 174, P. 766.

Owlett, F. C. : The Cat in Literature; Bibliophile; London; October
1908; Vol. 2, P. 82. Illustrated with drawings.

Panton, J. E. : Cats and Kittens, or in defence of the cat; English

Illustrated Magazine; March 1890; Vol. 7, P. 450. Illustrated
by Louis Wain.

338

Bibliography

Phoenix’s Feline Attachment; The Knickerbocker Magazine; July
1857, P. 87. A meeting of cats to consult concerning John
Phoenix’s feline attachment; idem; September 1857.

Puss; Chambers’s Journal; October 9, 1880; Vol. 57, P. 646.

Pussy’s bit in the war; Literary Digest; December 6, 1919; Vol. 63.
Pussy’s Notable Friends; Chambers’s Journal; Edinburgh; November
14, 1891; Vol. 68, P. 734.

A Question of Animal Ethics; The Spectator; October 7, 1911; Vol.
107, P. 541.

Repplier, Agnes: Americans and Others; Houghton, Mifflin Co.;

Boston; 1912. The Grocer’s Cat, P. 273.

Repplier, Agnes: Essays in Idleness: Houghton, Mifflin and Co.;

Boston; 1893. Agrippina, P. i.

Repplier, Agnes: Essays in Miniature; Houghton, Mifflin Co.; 1899;

Old World Pets P. 182.

Repplier, Agnes; In the Dozy Hours; Houghton, Mifflin and Co.;
Boston; 1894. A. Kitten, P. 16. This is a charming account of
Agrippina’s son, Claudius Nero.

Reserve and the Cat; Scribner’s Magazine; March 1919.

Riis, Jacob A.: Slippers, the White House Cat; Saint Nicholas;

January 1908; Vol. 35, P. 202. With an illustration.

Robinson, Phil: The Poets’ Beasts; Chatto and Windus; London;

1885. Some Poets’ Cats, P. 337.

Runciman, John F. : My French Cats; Saturday Review; London;

April 2, 1904; Vol. 97, P. 424.

St. Clair, George: The Cat and the Moon; Gentleman’s Magazine;

London; 1901; Vol. 290, P. 251.

Saint-Victor, Paul de: Les Chats; L’Artiste; Paris; 1870, P. 368.

Sanborn, Kate: My Literary Zoo; D. Appleton and Co.; New York;

1896. The paper on cats begins on P. 75.

Sandy; The Spectator; March 13, 1915; Vol. 114, P. 366.

A Short Paper on Cats; Leisure Hour; February 12, 1857; Vol. 6,
P. 107.

Southey, Robert: The Doctor; Longmans, Green and Co.; London;

1865 (edition in one volume). Contains Memoirs of Cats’ Eden
and Memoirs of the Cats of Greta Hall.

Spaulding, Thomas Marshall: The Army Cat; Overland Monthly;

December 1919; Vol. 74, P. 437.

339

Bibliography

Spencer, Herman: Mark Twain and the Cat; Harper’s Weekly;

February 9, 1907; Vol. 51, P. 194.

Stables, Gordon; A Plea for Pussy; Leisure Hour; 1888; Vol. 37,

P. 813.

Stories of Cats; Chambers’s Journal; December ii, 1886; Vol. 63,
P. 791.

Stray Thoughts on Stray Cats; Argosy; London; March 1894; Vol.
57. P- 252.

Strong, Prof. Herbert A.: The Cat; Chambers’s Journal; June i,
1916; Ser. 7, Vol. 6, P. 356.

Strong, H. A. : Some notes on the cat and the rat and the testimony

of language as to their early history; Academy; London; Janu-
ary 28, 1893; Vol. 43, P. 81. In the Academy for February 4,
1893, P. le P. Renouf has a corrective letter.

Sylva, Carmen: My Kittens; Century; August 1908; Vol. 76, P. 538.

Illustrated with photographs.

Toussenel, Alphonse: L’esprit des betes; zoologie passionelle; mam-

miferes de France; E. Dentu; Paris; 1858 (third edition). Le
Chat, P. 226. Translated by M. Edgeworth Lazarus as Pas-
sional Zoology, or Spirit of the Beasts of France.

Trueblood, Sarah E. : Cats by the Way; J. B. Lippincott Co.; Phil-

adelphia; 1904. Illustrations by the author.

Uncle Sam’s feline force of mail guardians; Literary Digest; April 12,
1919; P. 46.

Van Tricht, Victor: Nos Familiers; Paul Godenne; Namur; 1890

(third edition). Vol. i: Les familiers de la maison; chiens et

chats.

Vere, Scheie de: Pussy; Harper’s Monthly; March 1870; Vol. 40,

P. 481. The illustrations are mostly from Champfleury’s Les
Chats.

Warner, Charles Dudley: My Summer in a Garden; Houghton,

Mifflin, and Co.; Boston. Fields, Osgood, and Co. issued this
book in 1870. Mr. Warner’s Calvin appears in it several times.
When Calvin died Mr. Warner wrote a special paper about him
which first appeared, I think, in the Houghton, Mifflin edition of
1882, and has since been included in all subsequent editions.

Webb, Charles Henry: Uncared-for Cats; Lippincott’s; August 1894;

Vol. 54, P. 246.

340

Bibliography

What has become of the half-million war cats?; Literary Digest; May
lo, 1919.

What the cat thinks of the dog; Unpopular Review; July 1918; Vol.
10, P. 205.

Willy, Colette: La Paix Chez les Betes; Georges Cres et cie. ; Paris;

1916. Frontispiece by Steinlen. Contains the following cat es-
says: Poum, P. I ; Prrou, P. 17 ; La Shah, P. 35 ; Le Matou, P. 45 ;
Nonoche, P. 93; La Mere Chatte, P. 105; Le Tentateur, P. 113;
Automne, P. 127; Le Naturaliste et la Chatte, P. 135; Ricotte,
P. 153; Conte pour les Petits Enfants des Poilus, P. 221.

Wilson, Francis: Lady Jule; Ladies’ Home Journal; November 1902.

Illustrated with photographs.

Wister, S. B. (the first installment is signed C. B.) : Cats and Their

Affections; Temple Bar; December 1895; Vol. 106, P. 557; and
January 1896; Vol. 107, P. 84.

Wood, Eugene: Mah-ow!; Delineator; July 1917; Vol. 91, P. 12.

Illustrations by H. L. Drucklieb. This paper was written by a
canophilist who hates cats.

Wood, Rev. J. G. : Bible Animals: Longmans, Green, Reader, and

Dyer; London; 1869. The Cat, P. 36.

Wood, Rev. J. G. : Glimpses into Petland ; Bell and Daldy ; London ;

1863. Pages 1-84 about the cat, Pret. With a frontispiece by
Walter Crane.

Wynter, Andrew: Fruit Between the Leaves; Chapman and Hall;

London; 1875. Two volumes. Eccentric Cats, Vol. 2, P. 108.

XIV

THEATRE

Bunner, H. C. : Three Operettas; Harper and Brothers; New York;

1897. The Three Little Kittens of the Land of Pie, P. 3. Music
by Oscar Weil. Illustrations by C. D. Weldon.

Deshoulieres, Mademoiselle Antoinette Therese: La Mort de Cochon

(chien de M. le Marechal de Vivonne) ; tragedie. Collected
Works of Madame and Mademoiselle Deshoulieres, and Moncrif:
Les Chats, P. 190.

Fernald, Chester B.: The Cat and the Cherub: a play in one act;

341

Bibliography

Samuel French; Ltd.; New York and London; 1912. Although
some of the same characters appear, this is not a dramatization of
the story which bears the same name. The play was produced
at the Lyric Theatre, London, October 30, 1897.

Lopez, John S. : The Theatre Cat ; Harper’s Weekly ; January 4,

1908; Vol. 52, P. 22. Illustrated by Henry Raleigh.

Maeterlinck, Maurice: L’Oiseau Bleu; feerie en six actes et douze

tableaux. Performed for the first time at the Art Theatre in
Moscow, September 30, 1908.

Middleton, Thomas: The Witch.

Tieck, Ludwig: Der Gestiefelte Kater — ein Kindermarchen in drei

Akten (1797); P. 161, Vol. 5: Collected Works; Berlin; 1828.

An abbreviated translation. Puss in Boots, by Lillie Winter, is to
be found in The German Classics (edited by Kuno Francke) ;
German Publication Society; New York; Vol. 4, P. 194.
Todhunter, John: The Black Cat; Henry and Co.; London; 1895.

A play in three acts, performed by the Independent Theatre (J. T.
Grein, director) December 8, 1893, at the Opera Comique, Lon-
don.

Walter, Eugene: The Assassin; produced at the Collingwood Opera

House, Poughkeepsie, New York, on the afternoon of May 30,
1917. Not published.

Willy, Colette: Sept Dialogues de Betes; Mercure de France; Paris;

1905 (fifth edition). There is a preface by Francis Jammes and
a portrait of the author after a painting by Jacques Blanche.
Translated by Maire Kelly as Barks and Purrs, with many illus-
trations, the English version was published by Desmond Fitzger-
ald; New York; 1913.

MUSIC

Berthold, G. : Duet for Two Cats, with pianoforte accompaniment;

Augener and Co. ; London.

Dobson, Tom: The Cat (words by James Stephens) ; in The Rocky

Road to Dublin; Oliver Ditson Co.; Boston; 1919.

German, Edward: The First Friend (words by Rudyard Kipling);

342

Bibliography

in Just So Song Book; Doubleday, Page, and Co.; New York;
1919.

Kaufman, Mel B.: Me-ow: one-step; Sam Fox Publishing Co.;

Cleveland; 1918.

My Musical Critic; Atlantic Monthly; January 1894; Vol. 73, P.
139-

Scarlatti, Domenico: The Cat’s Fugue.

Stravinsky, Igor: Berceuses du Chat; four songs for a woman’s voice

and three clarinets; arranged for piano by the composer. Popular
Russian songs put into French by C. F. Ramuz; Edition Ad.
Henn; Geneva; 1917. I, Sur le poele; II, Interieur; III, Dodo;
IV, “ Ce qu’il a, le chat.”

Tschaikovsky, P. : La Belle au Bois Dormant; ballet; Opus 66; P.

Jurgenson ; Moscow. No. 23 is a Pas de Caractere between Puss
in Boots and the White Cat. This is on P. 168 of the piano
score.

XVI

ART

Bate, Francis: Mr. Arthur Tomson’s pictures and studies of cats at

the Dutch Gallery; The Studio; London; November 15, 1893;
Vol. 2, P. 65. Illustrated with drawings by Arthur Tomson.

Boston, Frederick J. and Elizabeth S. Tuc’ter: Cats and Kittens; with

numerous full-page colour-plates after paintings in water colours
hy F. J. Boston, and with decorative borders and other designs,
together with new stories and verses by E. S. Tucker; Frederick
A. Stokes Co.; New York; 1895. Juvenile.

The Cat Painter (Gottfried Mind) ; The Penny Magazine; London;
March i, 1834; Vol. 3, P. 86.

Cherville G. de: Les Chiens et les Chats d’Eugene Lambert; Librairie

de I’Art; Paris; 1888. Illustrated with six etchings of cats and
one hundred and forty-five drawings of cats and dogs.

Claudy, C. H.: Cats and Cameras; Photographic Times-Bulletin ;

New York; 1904; Vol. 36, P. 145. Illustrated with photographs
by the author.

Englemann, Richard: Die Katzen im Altertum; Jahrbuch des Kaiser-

343

Bibliography

lich Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts; Berlin; 1900; Vol. 14,
P. 136. With illustrations.

Evans, E. P. : Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture ;

Henry Holt and Co.; New York; 1896. With seventy-eight il-
lustrations.

Grandville ( Jean-Ignace-Isadore Gerard) : Album des Betes, a I’usage

des gens d’esprit; J. Hetzel; Paris. There are many plates of
cats but they are all from Les Metamorphoses du Jour and the
Vie Privee et Publique des Animaux. Louis Moens in Brussels
issued an edition of this book in 1864.

Grandville: Cent Proverbes; H. Fournier; Paris; 1845.

Grandville: Les Metamorphoses du Jour; Gustav Havard; Paris;

1854. The plates are coloured and there are many of cats.

Grandville: Physionomie du Chat; Magasin Pittoresque; Paris; 1840;

P. II. With thirteen engravings from drawings by Grandville.

Grandville: Vie Privee et Publique des Animaux; J. Hetzel; Paris;

1842.

Hall, Eugene J. : Peter and Polly ; Country Life in America ; Janu-

ary I, 1911 ; Vol. 19, P. 212. A series of photographs by Cornelia
Clarke.

Hamerton, Philip Gilbert: Chapters on Animals; Seeley, Jackson and

Halliday; London; 1874. Chapter XV, P. 221: Animals in

Art.

Havard, Henry: Henriette Ronner, un peintre de chats; E. Flam-

marion ; Paris; 1891. Illustrated with photogravures of the art-
ist’s paintings and reproductions of drawings in the text.

Howe, William Norton: Animal Life in Italian Painting; George

Allen; London; 1912. Illustrated.

Humphreys, Mabel: The Book of the Cat; Frederick A. Stokes Co.;

New York; 1903. With facsimiles of drawings in colour by
Elisabeth F. Bonsall. Large folio with binding of grey flannel
stamped with kitten heads.

Janvier, Catherine A. (Mrs. Thomas A.): London Mews; Harper

and Brothers; New York; 1904. Folio. Illustrations in colour
and text by Mrs. Janvier. Dedicated “‘To T. A. J., lover of
cats.”

Janvier, Thomas A.: The Cats of Henriette Ronner; Century Maga-

344

Bibliography

zine; October 1893; Vol. 46, P. 852. With illustrations from
paintings by Madame Ronner.

Keller, Otto: Zur Geschichte der Katze im Altertum; Mitteilungen

des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts; Rom; 1908;
Vol. 23, P. 40. With twelve illustrations.

Pollock, Walter Herries; Pictures of Cats; Magazine of Art; Vol.

7, P. 89. Illustrated with drawings by Mind and others.
Ranch, Edwin Carty: A Famous Photographer of Cats (Charles E.

Bullard); American Magazine; April 1915; Vol. 79, P. 56.
Illustrated with photographs.

Renouard: Croquis d’Animaux; Gillot; Paris. This is a folio book

of drawings ; there are several pages of interesting cats.

Ronner, Henriette: Cats and Kittens; Cassell and Co.; London; 1894.

Descriptive text by M. Vachon, translated by Clara Bell. The
twelve plates and the sketches in the text are entirely different
from those in the Spielmann volume.

Spielmann, M. H.: Henriette Ronner, the painter of cat life and cat
character; Cassell and Co.; London, 1891. Illustrated with
twelve Goupil photogravures from her paintings, a portrait, and
reproductions of her sketches in the text. Folio. A popular
edition was issued in 1892.

Sprigg, Stanhope: Louis Wain’s Method of Work; Cassell’s Maga-

zine; London; November 1898; Vol. 26, P. 563. Illustrated with
drawings by Wain and his photograph.

Steinlen, Theophile Alexandre: Des Chats; images sans paroles;

Ernest Flammarion; Paris; 1898. Large folio. Twenty-six
plates of drawings, all of cats, except one which is of white mice;
the covers bear a fine lithographic version of the famous poster,
Lait pur sterilise.

Thompson, Ernest Seton: Studies in the Art Anatomy of Animals;

Macmillan and Co.; London; 1896. Illustrated with many plates
by the author.

Tomson, Arthur: An Artist on the Cat in Art; Century Magazine;

New York; 1910; Vol. 80, P. 370. Illustrations from drawings
by the author.

Wain, Louis William: Louis Wain’s Annual, 1901, and several years

following; George Allen and Sons; London. Illustrated by Wain

345

Bibliography

with many fantastic and comic pictures of cats, several full pages,
many in colour. Paper covers with lithographs of cats.

Winans, Walter; Animal Sculpture; G. P. Putnam’s Sons; New
York; 1913. Illustrated with photographs.

XVII

ANTHOLOGIES

Cat Stories, retold from St. Nicholas (edited by M. H. Carter) ; Cen-
tury Co.; New York; 1904. On P. 4 is a letter from Mark
Twain, reprinted from St. Nicholas, where it was addressed to
Edwin Wildman. Illustrated with drawings and photographs.

Pender, Mrs. Frederick W. : Cats and Kittens, compiled and ar-

ranged, and original poems by Mrs. F. W. P. ; Edgar S. Werner
and Co.; New York; 1906. This is No. 35 of Werner’s Read-
ings and Recitations. Illustrated with drawings and photographs.

Repplier, Agnes: The Cat: being a record of the endearments and

invectives lavished by many writers upon an animal much loved
and much abhorred ; collected, translated, and arranged by Agnes
Repplier; Sturgis and Walton; New York; 1912. Illustrated by
Elisabeth F. Bonsall.

Tomson, Graham R. (Mrs. Rosamund Ball Marriott Watson) : Con-

cerning Cats: a book of poems by many authors; T. Fisher Unwin;
London;^ 1892. Illustrations by Arthur Tomson (W. Ball).
The American edition was issued by the Frederick A. Stokes Co.
the same year.

Van Vechten, Carl: Lords of the Housetops: thirteen cat tales;

Alfred A. Knopf; New York; 1921.

XVHI

POETRY

As many of the following poems are to be found in one or more of
the cat anthologies, I have given these references for convenience. Cats
and Kittens, of course, refers to Mrs. Pender’s Work; The Cat, to
Miss ReppHer’s, and Concerning Cats, to Mrs. Tomson’s.

346

Bibliography

Alnaharwany, Ibn Alalaf: On a cat that was killed as she was at-

tempting to rob a dove-cote; translated from the Arabic and ren-
dered freely by “ Dr. Carlyle”: The Cat, P. 42.

Arnold, Matthew: Poor Matthias; from Later Poems. The Atossa

episode from this: The Cat, P. 84; Cats and Kittens, P. 182;

Concerning Cats, P. 10; The Fireside Sphinx, P. 177.

Auld Bawthren’s Song: The Cat, P. 34; Concerning Cats, P. 85;
The Fireside Sphinx, P. 169.

Baillie, Joanna: The Kitten: Concerning Cats, P. 55; The Cat (ab-

breviated), P. 16.

Bates, Katherine Lee: Hudson’s Cat: in Sigurd Our Golden Collie,

P. 322.

Baudelaire, Charles: Fleurs du Mai; edition definitive; Calmann-

Levy; Paris. Le Chat, P. 135; Le Chat, P. 161; Les Chats, P.
189. These are all published in French in Concerning Cats;
there is an English transktion of Les Chats on P. 67 of The Cat;
English translations of Le Chat (2) and Les Chats, Pages 16, 17
of Mrs. W. Chance’s A Book of Cats; English translation of
Le Chat (i). Cats and Kittens, P. 115.

Baylor, Adelaide S. : Adventures of Miss Tabby Gray; W. A. Wilde

Co.; Boston; 1913. Illustrated by Josephine Druce. Juvenile.
Benserade, Isaac de: Labyrinthe de Versailles; Amsterdam; 1682 (?).

Published in four languages, French, English, German, and Dutch.
The original edition in French appeared in Paris in 1677. Fables,
with curious engravings of the fountains. The cat pieces are:
Le chat pendu et les rats, Le conseil des rats, Le singe et le chat.
La souris, le chat, et le petit coq.

Benserade, Isaac de: Sonnet (on the emasculation of a cat belonging

to Madame Deshoulieres) : Moncrif: Les Chats, P. 74.

Benson, A. C. : The Cat. In The Cat, P. 3 and The Fireside
Sphinx, P. 284.

Beranger, Pierre Jean de: La chatte. See Works of Beranger.

Boulmier, Joseph: A Ma Chatte Coquette: Concerning Cats, P.

133-

Boulmier, Joseph: A Mon Chat Gaspard: Concerning Cats, P. 134.

Boyle, Virginia Frazer: I kilt er cat; Love Songs and Bugle Calls;

A. S. Barnes and Co.; New York; 1906; P. 222. Concerning
Cats, P. 89.

347

Bibliography

Brown, C. Helton: Peter (a kitten buried at sea) ; The Spectator;

June 21, 1913 ; Vol. no, P. 1058.

Brown, Hattie: Catoninetales: a domestic epic, comprising a very

true and dismal pathetic narration of the ends of a most worthy
cat Kok Robyn beginning with his first death and burial and the
inquest thereupon; Lawrence and Bullen; London; 1891. 330

numbered copies. Edited and illustrated by W. J. Linton. Ac-
cording to the editor, Hattie Brown was “ a young lady of colour
lately deceased at the age of fourteen.”

Burgess, Gelett and Burges Johnson: The Cat’s Elegy; A. C. Mc-

Clurg and Co.; Chicago; 1913. Illustrated.

C. B.: The Terrific Legend of the Kilkenny Cats. In Helen M.

Winslow’s Concerning Cats, P. 168. An abbreviated version in
Concerning Cats, P. lOi.

Calverley, C. S. : Sad Memories: Concerning Cats, P. 67; The Cat,

P. 127.

The Cameronian Cat: Concerning Cats, P. 99.

Carlton, Will M.: Baron Grimalkin’s Death: Cats and Kittens,

P. 126.

Carryl, Guy Wetmore: How a Cat was annoyed and a Poet was

booted; Grimm Tales Made Gay; Houghton, Mifflin and Co.;
Boston; 1902. Illustrations by Albert Levering.

A cat may look upon a king; an epistolary poem on the loss of the ears
of a favourite female cat. By J. A. Belcher, esq. in his ms., ‘‘To
. . .”: Concerning Cats, P. 53.

A Cat’s Conscience: The Cat, P. 55.

Cat Tails; D. Lothrop Co.; Boston; 1887. Illustrated with many
drawings. Juvenile.

The Cattie Sits in the Kiln-Ring Spinning: Concerning Cats, P. 107;

The Cat, P. 170.

Les Chats: idile; from the Arabian ( ?) : Moncrif: Les Chats, P.

1 14.

Concerning a Certain Tom Cat, the companion and friend of one
Widow Tomkins, but whom she left locked up in her room without
either milk or mice: Ross: The Book of Cats, P. 185 ; Concern-

ing Cats, P. 96 (abbreviated).

Coolidge, Susan: Hodge, the Cat: The Cat, P. 81; Cats and Kit-

tens, P. 1 1 7.

348

Bibliography

Coppee, Francois: Sonnet to Henriette Ronner: Paul Megnin’s

Notre Ami le Chat, P, VIII.

Corrothers, J. D. : De Black Cat Crossed His Luck: The Black

Cat Club, P. 37; Cats and Kittens, P. 124.

Cowper, William : The Colubriad : Concerning Cats, P. 28 ; The

Cat, P. 154.

Cowper, William: The Retired Cat: Concerning Cats, P. 30; The

Cat, P. 144; Cats and Kittens, P. 236.

Davies, W. H.: The Cat: Living Age; August 30, 1919; Vol. 302,

P. 571. From the Westminster Gazette.

Delarue-Mardrus, Lucie: Pour le Chat; Willy et Colette Willy:

Claudine s’en va, P. 47.

Delarue-Mardrus, Lucie: A la Deesse Maut, a Tete de Chat: Souffles

de Tempete; Bibliotheque-Charpentier ; Paris; 1918; P. 74.

Deshoulieres, Madame et Mademoiselle: Oeuvres; two volumes;

Stereotype d’Herman; Paris; 1803. The cat poems are all by
Madame: Lettre en chansons a M. Deshoulieres; 1677; P. 55.

Moncrif quotes part of this, Les Chats, P. 97 and Gosse translates
a stanza in his essay in Gossip in a Library; Concerning Cats
(Gosse’s translation), P. 45. Epitre de Tata, chat de Madame
la Marquise Montglas, a Grisette, chatte de Madame Deshoulieres;
October 1678; P. 55; Moncrif, P. 169. Reponse de Grisette a
Tata, P. 56; Moncrif, P. 171. Blondin, chat des Jacobins de
la rue Saint-Honore, a sa voisine Grisette, sur les rimes de la piece
precedente, P. 58. Dom. Gris, chat de Madame la Duchesse de
Bethune, a Grisette, P. 59. Mittin, chat de Mademoiselle
Bocquet, a Grisette, P. 61. Regnault, chat de A. . . ., a Grisette,
P. 65. Reponse de Tata a Grisette, P. 65; Moncrif, P. 173.
Reponse de Grisette a Tata, P. 67; Moncrif, P. 176. Grisette,
a M. le Marechal Due de Vivonne, qui faisoit semblant de croire
que Madame Deshoulieres avoit fait un mauvais rondeau qui
couroit le monde, P. 69. Epitre de Cochon, chien de M. le
Marechal de Vivonne, a Grisette, P. 72. Response de Grisette
Cochon, P. 73. Reponse de Cochon a Grisette, P. 75.
Reponse de Grisette a Cochon, P. 77; Moncrif, P. 179. Reponse
de Cochon a Grisette, P. 80. Reponse de Grisette a Cochon, P.
83; Moncrif, P. 184. Rondeau a M. le Due de Vivonne, sur ce
qu’il soutenoit, en plaisantant, qu’elle etoit auteur du mauvais

349

Bibliography

rondeau dont il a ete parle dans I’epltre de Grisette; 1678; P. 84.
Docquois, Georges: Rondels pour les chats de Franqois Coppee: I.

Bourget; II. Petit-Loulou ; III. Mistigris. In Betes et Gens de
Lettres, P. 70.

Du Bellay, Joachim: Epitaphe d’un Chat: Moncrif: Les Chats, P.

156.

Epitaph: Ci repose pauvre Mouton: Ross: The Book of Cats,

P. 55.

Epitaph : Imitated in English from the Latin of Dr. Jortin : Con-

cerning Cats, P. 47.

Epitaph for the cat of Madame de Lesdiguieres : Moncrif, P, 104;

The Fireside Sphinx, P. 74.

Feydeau, Georges: Le Petit Menage: Megnin’s Notre Ami le Chat,

P. 259; illustrated by the actor, Saint-Germain.

Florian, Jean Pierre Clarisse: Fables. The Cat fables are: Le
Chat et le Miroir; Le Chien et le Chat; Le Chat et la Lunette;
Les Deux Chats; I’Hibou, le Chat, I’Oison, et le Rat; Le Chat et
les Rats; and Le Chat et le Moineau. There is an edition illus-
trated by Grandville.

Gardiner, Ruth Kimball: The Cat: The Cat, P. ii.

Garnett, Richard: Marigold: Concerning Cats, P. 78; The Cat, P.

164; The Fireside Sphinx, P. 290.

Garnett, Richard: To a cat which had killed a favourite bird (after

Agathias) : Concerning Cats, P. 50; The Cat, P. 41 ; The Fire-

side Sphinx, P. 15.

Gay, John: Fables. The. Fables about cats are The Rat-catcher and

the Cats; Concerning Cats, P. 38, and The Cat, P. 132; The Old
Woman and her Cats; and The Man, The Cat, the Dog, and the
Fly.

Gineste, Raoul : Chattes et Chats, avec une preface par Paul Arene ;

Marpon et Flammarion ; Paris; 1892. All the poems in this book
are about cats.

Gray, Thomas: On the death of a favourite cat drowned in a tub of

gold-fishes: Concerning Cats, P. 25; The Cat, P. 158; Cats and
Kittens, P. 232; The Fireside Sphinx, P. 135; Ross: The Book
of Cats, P. 260.

Green, Joseph: A poet’s lamentation for the loss of his cat: Cats

and Kittens, P. 261.

350

Bibliography

Guyot-Desherbiers : a long poem on cats, parts of which are quoted in
Megnin’s Notre Ami le Chat, Pages 66, 70, 73, 74, and iii, and
in Landrin’s Le Chat, P. 69, 89, 91, 93, 94, lOi, 148, 149, 150.
According to Landrin, Guyot-Desherbiers was the maternal grand-
father of Alfred de Musset, who sent the poem to Jean Gay, who
published it in his Les Chats.

Harte, Bret: Miss Edith’s Modest Request: Cats and Kittens, P. 138.
Hay, Elijah: The King Sends Three Cats to Guenevere: Others;

December 1918.

Heine, Heinrich: Poems, translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring;

George Bell; London; 1884. P. 46, Sonnet No. 7, (another
translation in Concerning Cats, P. 74) : Hiit dich, mein Freund,

vor grimmen Teufelsfratzen ; P. 117, No. 6, Clarissa; P. 129,
Songs of Creation; P. 162, No. 6, The Old Chimneypiece (two
stanzas of this, translated by Sir Theodore Martin, P. 14, The
Cat) ; P. 455, Romancero, Retrospect; P. 506, Red Slippers: Rote
Pantoffeln: Gar bdse Katze, so alt und grau; P. 529, Mimi:

Bin kein sittsam Biirgerkatzchen ; P. 533, The Young Cats’ Club
for Poetry-Music: Der philharmonische Katerverein. Mrs.

Browning translated two stanzas of a poem by Heine beginning,
“ The neighbour’s old cat often came to pay us a visit ; to be found
in Vol. 6, P. 165 of Mrs. Browning’s Complete Works; Thomas
Y. Crowell and Co. ; and in Kate Sanborn’s My Literary Zoo,

P. 85.

Herford, Oliver: The Bashful Earthquake; Charles Scribner’s Sons;

New York; 1900; contains the following poems on cats: The

Music of the Future, P. 9; Song, P. ii ; The Tragic Mice, P. 38;
Illustrations by the author.

Herford, Oliver: The Kitten’s Garden of Verses; Charles Scribner’s

Sons; New York; 1911. Illustrated by the author.

Herford, Oliver: The Laughing Willow; George H. Doran;
New York; 1918. The Town Cat, P. 65, and The Catfish,
P. 108.

Herford, Oliver: The Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten ; Charles Scribner’s

Sons; New York; 1904. Illustrations by the author.

Herford, Oliver: At the Photographers: Cat Stories from St. Nich-
olas, P. 20; An Open Letter: Cat Stories, P. 71 and Cats and

Kittens (called A Mirror Cat), P. 30; The Audacious Kitten:

351

Bibliography

Cat Stories, P. 178 and Cats and Kittens, P. 184. Illustrations
by the author.

Hess, Walter Leon: Feline Philosophy by Thomas Cat; Richard G.

Badger; Boston; 1919. The illustrations are mostly from Har-
rison Weir’s book.

Hood, Thomas: Puss and Her Three Kittens: Cats and Kittens,

P. 87.

Huddesford, George: Monody on the Death of Dick, an Academical

Cat; Collected Poems in two volumes; printed for J. Wright;
London; 1801; Vol. i, P. 131.

Hugues, Clovis: Les Petits Chats; in Percheron’s Le Chat, P. 22.

Idem Carmen Germanice Redditum: Concerning Cats, P. 79.

Katzenleben, Baroness de (pseudonym) : The Cat’s Tail: being the

history of Childe Merlin; William Blackwood; Edinburgh; 1831.
With two etchings and copies in colour by George Cruikshank.
Keats, John: To a Cat: Concerning Cats, P. 73.

The Kilkenny Cats: Helen M. Winslow’s Concerning Cats, P. 169.

King, Ben: That Cat: Cats and Kittens, P. 78.

Kipling, Rudyard: The First Friend; in Just So Stories.

La Fontaine, Jean de: Fables. The cat fables are Le Chat, la Belette,
et le petit Lapin ; Le Chat, le Cochet, et le Souriceau ; Le Chat et
les deux Moineaux ; Le Chat et le vieux Rat ; Le Chat et le
Renard ; Le Chat et le Singe; Le vieux Chat et la jeune Souris
(translated in The Cat,- P. 54) ; La querelle des Chats et des
Chiens, et celle des Chats et des Souris; La Chatte metamorphosee
en Femme (Concerning Cats, P. 126) ; and La Chatte, la Laie, et
I’Aigle.

Lamb, Charles: Prince Dorus; printed for M. J. Godwin; London;

1811. Illustrated with coloured engravings. The cat Minon
plays a part in this tale in rhyme and there are two pictures of
him. A facsimile of this book was printed in 1890.

Lament for Tabby, or the Cat’s Coronach: The Cat, P. 72; Con-

cerning Cats, P. 48.

La Mothe le Vayer, Francois de: Epitaphe de Marlemain (favourite

cat of Madame la Duchesse du Maine): Moncrif, P. 106;

Gosse (trans.) Gossip in a Library, P. 180; Concerning Cats,
P. 46 (Gosse’s translation) ; The Cat, P. 71 (Gosse’s translation) ;
The Fireside Sphinx, P. 74 (Gosse’s translation).

352

Bibliography

Landor, Walter Savage: Chinchillo (addressed to his child, Carlino) :

Cats and Kittens, P. 134.

Lemaitre, Jules: Sonnet: Concerning Cats, P. 135; The Fireside

Sphinx, P. 283. The last six lines of this sonnet, translated. The
Cat, P. 37.

Levesque, Madame: Minet (1736) : part of this poem is published on

P. 173 of Megnin’s Notre Ami le Chat.

Lindsay, Vachel: The Congo; Macmillan Co.; New York; 1914.

The cat poems are The Mysterious Cat, P. 38, and Dirge for a
Righteous Kitten, P. 40.

Locker, Frederick: Loulou and her Cat: Concerning Cats, P. 80.

Lowell, Amy: Pictures of the Floating World; Macmillan and Co.;

New York; igig. To Winky, P. 193.

Maine, Duchesse du: Rondeau Marotique: Moncrif, P. 96. The

envoy, translated by Gosse, P. 179, Gossip in a Library; The Cat,
P. 70; and Concerning Cats, P. 44.

Menard, M.: Sonnet: Moncrif, P. 134.

Monkhouse, Cosmo: The Cat and the Canary: Concerning Cats,

P. 82.

Moore, Edward: Fables; T. Heptinstall; London; 1799. The
Farmer, the Spaniel, and the Cat.

Mother Tabbyskins: Concerning Cats, P. no.

La Musique des Chats: Champfleury: Les Chats, P. 71; Concern-

ing Cats, P. 123.

Pikhson, J. Rheyn: Tawny Tom and Tabby Gray: The Knicker-

bocker Magazine; June 1842; P. 517.

Pindar, Peter (John Wolcot) : An Ode to Eight Cats: Works; edi-

tion of Jones and Co. ; London ; P. 246.

Pollock, Sir Frederick: Tom of Corpus: The Cat, P. no; The

Fireside Sphinx, P. 288.

Poor Puss: Concerning Cats, P. 119.

Prior, Matthew: Lines on a reasonable affliction: Concerning Cats,

P. 43-

Prior, Matthew: To my Lord Buckhurst, very young, playing with a

cat: Concerning Cats, P. 41 ; The Cat, P. 36.

Rives, Amelie: My Cat: McClure’s Magazine ; May 1920. Decora-

tion by Oliver Herford.

Ronsard, Pierre de: Le Chat: Concerning Cats, P. 124.

353

Bibliography

Rossetti, Christina: On the death of a cat, a friend of mine age ten

years and a half; New Poems; Macmillan and Co.; London;
1896. P, 313.

Ruffin, Alfred: Le Livre des Chats; Alphonse Lemerre; Paris; 1908. •
All the poems in this book are about cats.

Saint Gilles, Chevalier de: Le Renard et le Chat: Moncrif, P. 168.

Scarron, Paul: £pitre a Madame de Montatere: Moncrif, P. 99.

Scheffel, Joseph Victor von: Der Trompeter von Sakkingen: ein Sang

vom Oberrhein. Hiddigeigei, the Tom Cat, appears in the poem,
and there are thirteen Lieder des Katters Hiddigeigei. Trans-
lated as The Trumpeter, from the two hundredth German edition
by Jessie Beck and Louise Lorimer, with an introduction by Sir
Theodore Martin, K. C. B., this book was issued by William
Blackwood and Sons; Edinburgh and London; 1893.

Schofield, Lily: Tom Catapus and Potiphar, a tale of ancient Egypt;

Frederick Warne and Co.; London. Illustrated with many draw-
ings in colour.

Scollard, Clinton: Peter, an elegy: The Cat, P, 119.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe: Verses on a Cat: Concerning Cats, P. 71.

Skelton, John: The Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe: Vol. i, P. 51, The

Poetical Works of John Skelton, with notes by Rev. Alexander
Dyce; two volumes; Thomas Rodd; London; 1843. The cat epi-
sode from this long narrative poem may be found in The Cat,

P. 47.

Sonnet sur la chatte de Madame de Lesdiguieres: Moncrif, P. 89.

Southey, Robert: Southey’s Cats write their master: Cats and Kit-

tens, P. 263.

Stephens, James: The Cat.

Stevens, D. K. : The Lyrics of Eliza; Century Co.; New York; 1911.

Illustrated by Katherine Maynadier Browne. Juvenile.

Swinburne, Algernon Charles: To a Cat: The Cat, P. 68. A dif-

ferent version is to be found in Gordon Stables’s story, Shireen and
her Friends.

Taine, Hippolyte: Douze sonnets inedits de Taine; Figaro; Paris;

Supplement Litteraire; March ii, 1893. I, Le Bonheur; II, La
Societe; III, La Religion; IV, Les Souvenirs; V, Les Penates; VI,

La Philosophie; VII, L’Enseignement; VIII, La Pratique; IX,
L’Enfance; X, La Sensibilite; XI, Le Point de Vue; XII,

354

Bibliography

L’Absolu. Published posthumously without the consent of the
author’s heirs and executors. They carry this inscription: A

trois chats, Puss, Ebene et Mitonne, domicilies a Menthon-Saint-
Bernard, Haute-Savoie, ces douze sonnets sont dedies par leur ami
et serviteur, H. Taine, novembre, 1883. Pratique, in French,
The Fireside Sphinx, P. 194; translated, in The Cat, P. 33.

Tennyson, Alfred Lord: The Spinster’s Sweet-arts; Works of Tenny-

son; Macmillan and Co.; London, 1893 ; Vol. 10, P. 70.

Tomson, Graham R. : Arsinoe’s Cats (imitation in the manner of

the latter Greek poets, circa A. D. 500) : Concerning Cats, P.

51; The Cat, P. 65; The Fireside Sphinx, P. 14.

Tomson, Graham R. : Dedication: Concerning Cats, P. 3.

Tomson, Graham R. : To my cat: le chat noir: Concerning Cats,

P. 76; The Cat, P. 61; The Fireside Sphinx, P. 281.

Tregellas, John Tabois: Grammer’s Cat and Ours: Concerning

Cats, P. 92;

Tuberville, George (attributed to) : The Lover, whose Mistresse

feared a Mouse, declareth that he would become a Cat if he might
have his desire: Concerning Cats, P. 36; The Cat, P. 8; The

Fireside Sphinx, P. 132.

Verlaine, Paul: Femme et Chatte: Concerning Cats, P. 132.

Watson, William: A Study in Contrasts: Collected Poems; John

Lane Co.; London; 1899; P. 188.

Wells, Carolyn: A Serious Question: Cat Stories from St. Nicholas,

P. 166. Illustrated by Oliver Herford.

Wells, Carolyn: The Timid Kitten: Cats and Kittens, P. 58.

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler: Two Pussy-Cats: The Pet Cat; The Tramp

Cat: Cats and Kittens, P. 105.

Wordsworth, William: The Kitten and the Falling Leaves: Con-

cerning Cats, P. 61; The Cat (abbreviated), P. 29; Cats and Kit-
tens (abbreviated), P. 122.

XIX

MISCELLANEOUS

Chapin, Howard Millar: Murthy’s Cattage: a biographical diction-

ary of cats in literature; published by the author; Providence;

355

Bibliography

Rhode Island; 1911. With a portrait from a photograph of
“ Murthy.” Pamphlet.

Euwer, Anthony Henderson: Christopher Cricket on Cats: with ob-

servations and deductions for the enlightment of the human
race from infancy to maturity and even old age; introduction
by Wallace Irwin; The Little Book Concern; New York; 1909.
Illustrations by the author.

Hoffmann, E. T. A: Lebensansichten des Katers Murr: See col-

lected works of Hoffmann.

Holbrook, Richard Thayer: Dante and the Animal Kingdom; Co-

lumbia University Press; New York; 1902.

Mangin, Arthur: L’Homme et la BHe; Firmin Didot freres, fils et

cie. ; Paris; 1872.

Pictet, Adolphe: Les origines Indo-Europeennes ou les Ar}^as primitifs,

essai de paleontologie linguistique ; Joel Cherbuliez; Paris; 1859.
Two Volumes. The cat, Vol. i, P. 381.

UNCLASSIFIED

The following books I have not seen, but as I have found references
to them, I include them for the sake of the record.

A. W. B.: It was ever so long ago; the adventures of a cat-child;

Headley Brothers; London; 1911. Ten plates in colour and
small drawings in the text by Hugh Wallis.

Adeline, Jules: Le chat d’apres les Japonais; Rouen; 1893.

Bennett, Charles: Nine Lives of a Cat.

Brentano: Die mehreren Wehmiiller.

Dame Wiggins of Lee, and her seven wonderful cats. A humorous
tale. Written principally by a lady of ninety; Newman and Co.;
London; 1823. With eighteen coloured woodcuts. In 1885 the
book was reissued by G. Allen of Orpington, for which John
Ruskin added four stanzas, and Kate Greenaway made drawings.
Dick Whittington; the cat manual; London; 1902.

An Essaie on the Householde Cat; 1714-
Francois, Luise von: Katzenjunker.

356

Bibliography

Gardner, J. G. : The Cat, with hints for feeding, breeding, etc. ; St.

Mary Cray; 1892.

Gay, Jean: Les Chats; Gay; Paris and Brussels; 1866. (extraits de

pieces rares et curieuses en vers et en prose . . . le tout concern-
ant la gent feline)

Howitt, Mary: Household Pets: Cats and Parrots; Cassell, Petter,

and Galpin; London; 1863. With three full-page woodcuts of
cats engraved by Quartley after W. H. Freeman.

Hunt, Violet: The Cat; A. and C. Black; London; 1905. With

twelve colour plates after paintings' by Adolph Birkenruth.

Leopold, Svend: Goethe’s Katze.

Maurogiannes: Chiens de Constantinople et chiens et chats de bonne

maison; Paris; 1901.

Megede, J. R. zur: Ueberkater; 1904.

Minnett, Cora and Pellew Hawker: Lucky; F. V. White and Co.;

London; 1911. Illustrated with eleven full-page drawings by
A. MacNeill-Barbour.

Mitton, G. E. : Animal Autobiographies.

Pollock, W. Herries: Animals that have owned us; John Murray;

London; 1904. Pages 66-136 devoted to cats.

Raton : Sur I’education du chat domestique ; son histoire philosophique

et politique; traitement de ses maladies.

Straus-Durckheim: Anatomie descriptive et comparative du chat;

1845-

Tales from Catland. Illustrated by Harrison Weir.

Valle, I. : Epitaphs of Some Dear Dumb Animals; R. C. Badger,

Boston; 1916.

357

' ' '-i' .. -■‘'.'t'’

•*>,V

...M;

Ml* , •

Index

Abdullah, Achmed, 234
Achard, Emile, 50, 333
Adams, Morley, 137
Addison, Joseph, 62, 209, 333
Aesop, 255, 325

Ailurophobia, 30, 61 et seqq., 182, 280,
333. 337, 338 _

Alden, William Livingston, 326

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 326

Alnaharwany, Ibn Ilalaf, 347

Anisfeld, Boris, 218

Apocrypha, 84

Apthorp, W. F., 198

Arabian legend, 84

Ariel, Carl Van Vechten’s cat, 5, 6, 35

Arnold, Matthew, 24, 257, 282, 347

Arnould, Sophie, 206

d’Aurevilly, Barbey, 290

Babington, Percy L., 309
Bacon, Peggy, 62, 326
Baillie, Joanna, 255, 347
Balestieri, Domenico, 248, 273
Balzac, Honore de, 224, 225, 231, 238
et seq., 326, 332
Banchieri, Adriano, 198
Barrocio, 215, 216
Barton, Frank Townend, 311
Bassano, 215

Baudelaire, Charles, 17, 81, 205, 247,
256, 258, 261, 265 et seqq., 276,
277, 289, 293, 298, 336, 347
Beardsley, Aubrey, 222
Beaumarchais, 142
Bebb, Rosa, 313
Bell, J. J., 326

Bellay, Joachim du, 272, 273, 350
Belloc, Hilaire, 66, 67, 334
Benserade, Isaac de, 8, 347
Benson, A. C., 256, 347
Benson, Margaret, 24, 269
Bentham, Jeremy, 219, 282
Beranger, Pierre Jean de, 222, 224, 265,
347

Berenger-Feraud, Laurent-Jean-Bap-
tiste, 96, 323

Bergen, Fanny D., 113, 114, 118, 119,
125, 323

Berthold, G., 198, 342
Bible, The, 84, 215, 341
Bierce, Ambrose, 65, 115, 244, 326
Birds, 28, 32, so, 60, 75, 76, 77, 89, 139,
165, 167, 169, 170, 176, 178, 211,
231, 244, 249, 250, 281, 322
Bisset, 196

Blackwood, Algernon, 19, 103, 104, 105,
106, 107, 126 et seqq., 199, 200, 327
Bles, Hendrick met de, 217
Bolm, Adolf, 178, 180
Bomare, Valmont de: See Valmont de
Bomare

Bonheur, Rosa, 211
Bonsall, Elisabeth F., 226, 310, 344
Boothby, Guy, 19
Borodin, Alexander, 203, 204
Borrow, George, 73, 74, 235, 282, 294,
334 _

Bosch, Hieronymus, 217

Boston, F. J., 343

Boswell, James, 66, 280

Boulmier, Joseph, 267, 347

Bowring, E. A., 192, 205

Boyle, Virginia Frazer, i2o, 347

Brahms, 204

Breughel, Jan, 217

Brewster, Edwin Tenney, 70, 321

Brewster, William, 76, 322

Brontes, The, 28

Brule, Albert de, 215

Buchanan, Col. A., 55, 317

Budge, E. A. Wallis, 323

Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, 3, 64,

65. 137, 315

Billow, Hans von, 202, 203
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward, 17, 240, 241,
327

Buncho, 230
Bunner, H. C., 182, 341

359

Index

Burbank, 22i, 223, 309
Burgess, Gelett, 234, 327, 348
Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 298
Burroughs, John, 43, 44 et seqq., 319
Busoni, Ferruccio, 193
Butler, Samuel, 5, 190, 207, 233, 283 et
seqq., 294

Byron, Lord, 281, 289

Cabell, James Branch, 1, 77, 115, 225,
234

Cagliostro, 107

Caillot, Jules-Severin, 149, 327
Calverley, C. S., 256, 348
Calvete, Juan Christoval, 195
Calvin, Charles Dudley Warner’s cat,
76, 299 et seqq., 340
Camargo, Marie-Anne de, 206
Campbell, John Gregorson, icxj, 323
Canning, 249
Cannon, Joe, 295

Capital punishment of animals, 160

Carl-cats, 141

Carlin, 181

Carlton, Will M., 348

Carlyle, Thomas, 281

Carroll, Lewis, 10, ii, 97, 136, 268, 327

Carryl, Guy Wetmore, 39, 242, 243,

327, 348

Castration, 7, 8, 33, 285, 347
Catalani, Angelica, 206
Cat-calls, 173, 333
Catgut, 209, 210
Cat-fear: See Ailurophobia
Cat Harris, 205
Catlike man, 57
Cat-organs, 195 et seqq.

Cat-shows, 292, 335, 338
Cat-spectres, 93, 94, 126
Cats

affection of, 30, 38, 241, 301
and death, 114 et seqq.
and dreams, 122, 234
and earthquakes, 108
and fires, 109

and intoxicating drinks, 5, 67

and marine insurance, 168

and mirrors, 263

and the moon, 81, 82, 85

and negroes, 119 et seqq., 156, 157

Cats (continued)
and the sea, 122

and the supernatural, 125 et seqq.
and water, 5, 6, 29
and weather, no et seqq.
as actors, 173 et seqq.
as clairvoyants, 109
as clocks, 82, 109
as Djinns, 91, 92
as gods, 83, 85 et seqq., 269
as fighters, 33, 34
as food, 72, 139

as hunters, 12, 22, 31, 32, 49, 50, 53,
54. 75. 76. 86, 155, 156, 173, 190,
264

as melomaniacs, 200 et seqq.
as plague preventers, 55
as property, 163 et seqq., 323
as property owners, 35, 36
as retrievers, 6, 7
as thieves, 35, 50, 158, 241
as witches, 68, 82, 84, 91, 95, 97 et
seqq., 121
boredom of, 40

charities, i68 et seqq., 201, 203
cleanliness of, 10, n, 22, 23, 46, 47,
III, 112, 113
cruelty of, 31, 32
curiosity of, 40, 41
delicacy of, 57, 58
eccentricities of, 4, 83
embalming of, 87, 88, 234
enemies of, 28, 60 et seqq.
eyes of, 82, 98, 212, 225
food of, 5, 7, 67, 285, 300
gesture language of, 44 et seqq.
in architecture, 214, 215, 344
in Catholic ritual, 89 et seqq., 334
in China, 91 et seqq., 229
independence of, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29,
37. 39. 40, 52. 83, 159, 169. 175.
184, 212, 243, 278, 279, 304
in Egypt, 6, 56, 85 et seqq., 131, 133,
179, 191 et seqq., 229, 230, 323
in Greece, 89, 213, 214
in heraldry, 143
in India, 92

in Japan, 91, 94 et seqq., 230
in moving pictures, 178
in Rome, 89, 213, 214

360

Index

Cats (continued)
in Russia, 157

instinct versus intelligence, 43 et seqq.
intelligence of, 29, 43 et seqq., 177,
300, 306, 319
jealousy of, 36

language of, 44 et seqq., 187 et seqq.
laws regarding, 159 et seqq.
love of home, 9, 37, 38, 39, 270, 271
love of warmth, 12
magnetism of, 60, 81, 116
maternal instinct of, 10, 33, 52
medicinal uses of, 123 et seqq.
mystery of, 83, 129, 131, 248, 265,
276, 287

nervousness of, 7, 8, 14, 15, 16, 108,
no et seqq., 185, 207
opera, 196, 206
origin of, 131 et seqq.
philosophy of, 56, 246, 302
photography of, 213, 343, 345
purring of, 189, 199
sense of smell of, 41, 42, 54
sex-habits of, 3, 33, 186, 265
signs, 145

singing of, 188 et seqq.
spitting of, 28, 133, 188, 189, 198
suicide of, 5, 8

superstitions regarding, 111 et seqq.,
170 et seqq.
talking, 96, 97

torture of, 68 et seqq., 99 et seqq.
usefulness of, 53, 54, 116, 155, 156,
173 et seqq., 270 et seqq.
variety in, 3, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21
words derived from, 133 seqq.
Cellini, Benvenuto, 53, 216
Cervantes, 145, 232

Chambers, Robert W., 78, 79, 234, 327
Champfleury, 18, 23, 57, 81, 189, 195,
212, 215, 221, 263, 289, 290, 291,
309, 310, 340

Champion, Dorothy Bevill, 312
Chance, Lady, 226, 310
Chapin, Howard Millar, 355
Chateaubriand, Frangois Rene de, 2, 3,
19, 289, 290

Cherville, G. de, 220, 343
Chesterfield, Lord, 168
Clark, Marvin R., 295, 310

Clifford’s Inn cats, 284
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, i8
Cold-storage cats, 12
Colette, 4, II, 12, 19, no, 183 et seqq.,
332, 333. 336. 341. 342
Conway, Moncure Daniel, 84, 97, 124,
13s, 141, 324

Conway, W. M., 86, 87, 88, 335
Coolidge, Susan, 348
Coppee, Frangois, 20, 255, 267, 291, 292,
349

Corrothers, James David, 20, 119, 120,
327, 349

Courteline, Georges, 292
Cowper, William, 59, 255, 349
Cros, Charles, 268
Cust, the Honorable Lady, 312, 334

Daly, Augustin, 171
Dante, 98

Darwin, Charles, 43, 76, 189, 317, 319
Darwin, Dr. Erasmus, in
Daudet, Alphonse, 68
Davies, W. H., 349
Davison, Alvin, 317
Day, Clarence, Jr., 10, 395
Defoe, Daniel, 222, 224
Delacroix, Eugene, 219
Delarue-Mardrus, Lucie, 268, 269, 349
Deshoulieres, Mile. Antoinette Therese,
13. 183, 341

Deshoulieres, Madame, 8, 13, 247, 263,
264, 347. 349
Destinnova, Emmy, 207
Dick Whittington, 133, 150, 151, 180
Dickens, Charles, 18, 19, 115, 231, 281
Dobson, Tom, 200, 342
Docquois, Georges, 68, 336
Dodge, Mabel, 89, 219
Dogs, I, 3, 12, 13, 14, 19, 22, 26, 27, 28,
29. 30. 34. 36. 41. 42. 48. 49. 50, 52.
56, 57, 58, 60, 82, no, 126, 127,
137. 140. 14s. 157. 164, 169, 177,

178, 184 et seqq., 188, 207, 211,

231. 235, 250, 251, 252, 259, 261,

263, 266, 268, 270, 277, 278, 280,

281, 282, 288, 294, 304, 305

Dostoievsky, 73
Dreiser, Theodore, 234, 235
Dresel, Otto, 198

361

Index

Dumas, Alexandre, 19, 109, 288, 289,
336

Dupont de Nemours, 188
Dupuy, Mile., 203, 207
Dvorak, Antonin, 204
Dyer, T. F. Thiselton, 114, 123, 157,
324

Eagles, 23, 77
Edgeworth, Maria, 281
Ehrhard, Auguste, 182
Eliot, George, 40, 232
Ellis, Havelock, 44, 214, 296
Elssler, Fanny, i8o et seqq.

Embalmed cats, 87, 88, 234
Engel, Carl, 191
Engle, Marie, 207
Epitaphs, 272 et seqq., 350, 357
Etymology, 85, 132, 133
Euwer, Anthony Henderson, 356
Evans, E. P., 55, 160, 319, 323, 344
Evans, T. W., 262
Ewart, J. Cossar, 312

Feathers, Carl Van Vechten’s cat, 14,
17, 36, 4D 49, 77, 113, 175, 190,
1 91, 202, 224, 306

Fernald, Chester Bailey, 179, 328, 341
Feuillet de Conches, 263
Feydeau, Georges, 350
Ficke, Arthur Davison, 230, 308
Fielding, Henry, 231
Fishing cats, 6, 204, 227
Fitzgerald, David, 134, 324
Flaubert, Gustave, 72
Florian, Jean Pierre Clarisse, 49, 222,
262, 263, 350
Floris, Franz, 217

Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier, 98, 287
Fragonard, Jean Honore, 217
France, Anatole, 19, 44, 77, 277, 328
Frazer, J. G., 69, 117, 118, 324
Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins: See Mary
E. Wilkins

Freyja, Norse goddess, 86, 98
Froude, James Anthony, 336
Furness, Harriet V., 308
Fyt, Jan, 217

Gainsborough, Thomas, 217
Galiani, Abbe, 189, 190

Gardiner, William, 194
Garnett, Richard, 19, 257, 350
Gauthier, Eva, 199, 207
Gautier, Theophile, 14, 16, 20, 36, 71,
202, 207, 213, 249, 265 et seqq., 277,
287, 291, 310, 336
Gay, Delphine, 57
Gay, Jean, 357
Gay, John, 252, 253, 350
Gembloux, Pierquin de: See Pierquin
de Gembloux

George, W. L., 19, P45, 246, 328
German, Edward, 342
Ghirlandajo, 216
Gib-cats, 141
Gilbert, W. S., 200

Gineste, Raoul, 7, 8, 81, 97, 139, 247,
250, 268, 269, 270, 350
Giordano, Luca, 216
Gipsy, Booth Tarkington’s, 26, 27, 28
Gladstone, William Ewart, 282
Goldsmith, Alfred F., 308
Goldsmith, Oliver, 65, 248
Gosse, Edmund, 66, 231, 274, 289, 336
Gourmont, Remy de, 33
Gozzoli, Benozzo, 216
Graham, R. B. Cunninghame, 328
Grammont, Louis de, 30
Grandville, 222 et seqq., 226, 332, 344
Gray, Thomas, 227, 254, 275, 282, 350
Green, Joseph, 192, 350
Greene, Frederick Stuart, 78, 328
Gregory XV, 18
Gregory, Lady, 179
Groot, Professor de, 93
Gubernatis, Angelo de, 134, 324

Halliwell, J. O., 197
Hamel, Frank, 121, 218, 324
Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, 58, 2n, 336,
344

Hamilton, Allan McLane, 182, 328
Hammeker, Theodore, 8
Harrison, Frederick, 52
Harte, Bret, 258, 351
Harunobu, 230
Harwood, W. S., 88, 324
Hauterot, M., 190
Hay, Elijah, 351
Hay, John, 138

Index

Hazlitt, William Carew, 136, 324
Hearn, Lafcadio, 7, 17, 152, 293, 324,
328, 336

Heine, Heinrich, 192, 201, 204, 205, 247,
249, 261, 262, 351, 355
Helda, Norse goddess, 86
Henry III of France, 66
Henty, G. A., 6, 87, 328
Herford, Oliver, 59, 209, 228, 229, 247,
260, 261, 337, 351, 353
Herrick, Robert, 112, 248, 249
Hess, Walter Leon, 260, 352
Hiddigeigei, Joseph Victor von Schef-
fel’s, 9, 19, 68, 194, 261, 354
Hill, J. Woodroffe, 312
Hirsch, Charles-Henry, 234
Hoey, Mrs. Cashel, 221, 309
Hoffmann, E. T. A., 240, 356
Hokusai, 230
Holland, Sir Henry, 280
Holland, Scott, 206
Hone, William, 89, 117, 324
Hood, Tom, 19, 255, 352
Hopvrood, Avery, 7, 109, 171, 178
Hovrel Dda, i6i
Howells, W. D., 296, 297, 337
Huddesford, George, 20, 21, 273, 274,
352

Hudson, W. H., 7, 14, 41, 42, 2ii, 277,
278, 316

Hugo, Victor, 20, 277, 291, 302
Huidekoper, R. S., 312
Huneker, James, 118, 143, 200, 204, 205
Hunt, Leigh, 32, 113, 337
Huysmans, J. K., 236, 237, 238, 277,
289, 291, 328

Imitative Music, 197 et segq.

Ingham, John H., 167, 323
Irving, Henry, 171

Jacobina, Bulwer-Lytton’s, 240, 241
James, Henry, 187, 231, 232, 235, 295
James, Robert Kent, 313
Janvier, Catherine A., 226, 344
Janvier, Meredith, 4
Janvier, Thomas A., 17, 20, 154, 155,
156, 297, 298, 329, 344
Jennings, John, 313
Jerome, Jerome K., 5, 6, 337

Jesse, Edward, 80, 316
Jewett, Sarah Orne, 298
Johnson, Samuel, 18, 66, 280
Jones, Henry Festing, 284, 285
Jonson, Ben, 123
Jordaens, 217
Jortin, Dr., 275

Kallikrates, W. L. George’s, 245, 246
Keats, John, 256, 352
Keller, Gottfried, 153, 329
Kelley, Edgar Stillman, 200
Kiki-la-Doucette, Colette Willy’s, 4,
no, 184 et seqq.

Kilkenny cats. The, 135, 348, 352
Kipling, John Lockwood, 137, 138, 325
Kipling, Rudyard, 63, 243, 329, 342,

352

Kitao Masanobu, 230
Kittens, 59, 260, 261
Kiyomitsu, 230
Kiyonobu I, 230

Knatchbull-Hugessen, E. H., 149, 329

Kock, Paul de, 277, 292

Koriusai, 230

Krieger, Adam, 198

Krilof, Ivan, 158, 325

La Fontaine, Jean de, 149, 222, 263,
289, 352

La Jeunesse, Ernest, 292
Lamb, Charles, 352

Lambert, Louis Eugene, 220, 292, 309,
343

La Mothe le Vayer, Frangois de, 274,
352

Landor, Walter Savage, 256, 353
Landrin, Alexandre, 18, 310
Landseer, Sir Edwin, 2ii
Lane, C. H., 6, 40, 53, 122, 313
Lang, Andrew, 34, 39, 48, 64, 131, 149,
197. 333. 337
Lavalette, 222
Lear, Edward, i8
Lebrun, 217

Leffingwell, Albert, 75, 321
Lemaitre, Jules, 96, 267, 277, 353
Leo XII, 18, 19, 289
Lesdiguieres, Madame de, 14, 274, 354
Liddon, Canon, 174, 175

363

Index

Lincoln, Abraham, 160
Lind, Jenny, 206, 207
Lindsay, Vachel, 228, 275, 353
Lindsay, W. L., 5, 10, 16, 40, 45, 46, 50,
109, 320

Locker, Frederick, 353
Lombroso, Cesare, 247
Loti, Pierre, 20, 95, 183, 235, 236, 277,

287, 329, 338

Lowell, Amy, 353
Lucas, E. V., 338
Lydekker, R., 131, 316
Lynd, Robert, 338

Machen, Arthur, 106, 233
Maeterlinck, Maurice, 179, 342
Maine, Duchesse du, 274, 353
Mallarme, Stephane, 291
Manet, Edouard, 221, 222, 309
Mantegazza, Paolo, 74, 75, 196
Manx cats, 117, 162, 317
Mapleson, J. H., 171, 206
Marcello, 197

Marcellus, Comte de, 2, 3, 289

Marinoff, Fania, 178, 179, 228, 229, 308

Marks, Anne, 310

Marquis, Don, 331

Maspero, Gaston Camille Charles, 88

Maugham, Somerset, 256

Maupassant, Guy de, 10, 277, 338

Mayer, A. G., 43

McAllister, Ward, 183

Megnin, Paul, 291, 310

Megnin, Pierre, 292

Meier, Ernst, 106

Menard, 353

Mendes, Catulle, 8, 12, 233, 292
Merimee, Prosper, 82, 277, 290, 291
Metempsychosis, 55, 92, 93
Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 66, 204
Mice, 12, 22, 28, 31, 32, 50, 54, 64, 84,
86, 88, 117, 138, 139, 140, 142, 148,
153, 157, 161, 162, 173, 176, 196,
214, 244, 251, 264, 283
Michel, Gustav, 310
Michelet, Madame Jules, 16, 17, 24, 31,
38, 42, 52, 57, 82, 207, 208, 209, 310
Middleton, Richard, 235
Middleton, Thomas, 180, i88, 342
Mieris, Willem van, 217

Miller, Olive Thorne, 5, 77, 313, 316,
338

Mills, T. Wesley, 49, 320
Mind, Gottfried, 219, 223, 343
Mirbeau, Octave, 75, 234, 277, 292, 329
Mistral, Frederic, 292
Mitchell, S. Weir, 62, 333, 338
Mivart, St. George, 5, 48, 305, 318
Modje^ka, Helena, 170
Mohammed, 2, 84, 288
Moncrif, F. A. Paradis de, 8, 14, 18, 55,
98, 112, 151, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193,
194, 212, 287, 310
Monkhouse, Cosmo, 353
Montaigne, Michel de, 278, 279
Moore, Edward, 251, 252, 253
Moore, George, 39, 231, 234, 285, 286,
287, 294

Morgan, Lady, 280

Moses, Joseph Winthrop, 201, 338

Moussorgsky, Modest, 200

Muller, Eugene, 51

Mummies, cat, 87, 88

Murska, lima de, 206

Napoleon, 61

Neel, Edith K., 313

Newton, Isaac, 256

Niecks, Frederick, 198

Nursery Rhymes, 80, 146 et seqq., 197

O’Donnell, Elliott, 115, 126, 325
Ostrowski, Leon, 290

Palliot, Pierre, 85, 144
Parke, W. T., 206
Pater, Walter, 71
Pauli, Charles Paine, 283
Payne, John, 282
Peacock, Thomas Love, 233
Pearson, T. G., 77, 322
Pender, Mrs. Frederick W., 346
Pennant, Thomas, 40, 64, 191, 316
Peple, Edward, 17, 330
Percheron, Gaston, 18, 310
Performing cats, 175 et seqq., 196
Petrarch, 2
Picard, Gaston, 330
Pickens, Jessie, 15
Pictet, Adolphe, 132, 356

364

Index

Pierquin de Gembloux, no, 187, 188,
189, 207, 320, 321
Pindar, Peter, 253, 254, 353
Pinski, David, 330
Pius IX, 18
Planche, J. R., 180
Poe, E. A., 19, 79, 222, 293, 330
Polko, Elise, 330
Pollock, Channing, 173
PoIIodk, Sir Frederick, 353
Pollock, Walter Herries, 345, 357
Pope, Alexander, 251
Powell, G. H., 54, 330
Prior, Matthew, 255, 353
Prisse d’Avennes, 168
Protective Mimicry, 23, 24
Proverbs, 137 et seqq., 325
Puccio, 21 6
Pujol, Francesc, 198
Puss in Boots, 97, 149, 180, 197, 198
Putnam, Emily James, 89, 213

Ralston, W. R. S., 150, 151, 325
Rats, 10, 12, 14, 50, 92, 117, 139, 145,
152, 160, 168, 173, 176, 214, 251
Read, Louise, 290
Reed, Florence, 171
Rembrandt, 218
Rengger, J. R., 54
Renoir, Pierre Auguste, 218
Renouard, 227, 345
Repercussion, 105 et seqq.

Repplier, Agnes, 19, 156, 175, 177, 199,
216, 217, 241, 256, 264, 298, 310,
339. 346

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 2, 18
Richardson, Henry Handel, 19, 233
Richelieu, Cardinal, 2, 18
Riis, Jacob A., 160, 339
Rimsky-Korsakoff, Nicholas, 203, 204
Rives, Amelie, 353
Roberts, Charles G. D., 26, 317, 331
Robinson, Louis, 23, 29, 77, 316
Rolfe, Gertrude B., 167, 323
Rolleston, Professor, 61
Romanes, George J., 31, 43, 320
Ronner, Henriette, 213, 220, 223, 228,
344, 345. 349

Ronsard, Pierre de, 66, 353
Roosevelt, Theodore, 160, 295

Rops, Felicien, 143
Ross, C. H., 6, 122, 311, 334
Rossetti, Christina, 275, 354
Rossini, 172
Rossiter, Clara, 4
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 232
Rouviere, i8i

Ruffin, Alfred, 268, 270, 271, 272, 277,
354

Rule, Philip V., 313
Runciman, John F., 19, 201, 339
Russian cats, 10

Saadi, 248
Sacchini, 203

Saint-Beuve, Charles Augustin de, 291
Saint Gertrude, 84
Saint Ives, 84, i6i
Saint Martha, 84
Salmon, Malster, 82
Salt, Henry S., 75, 321
Saltus, Edgar, 167, i68, 298, 299, 331
Santley, Charles, 172
Savage, Eliza Mary Ann, 5, 207, 283
et seqq.

Scarlatti, 202, 203, 204, 343
Scheffel, Joseph Victor von, 9, 19, 68,
194. 247. 261, 354
Schoefer, Honore, 66
Science, 42 et seqq., 247
Scollard, Clinton, 275, 354
Scott, Sir Walter, 20, 61, 66, 81, 102,
234. 280

Seton, Ernest Thompson, 41, 331, 345
Seumas, Chief of Clann Fhearghuis of
Stra-chur, 100, 144

Shakespeare, William, 60, 140, 250,

251. 303. 325

Shaw, Bernard, 180
Shelley, Percy B., 256, 281, 354
Siamese cats, 2, 10, 331
Siddons, Sarah, 50
Simpson, Frances, 311, 314
Sistrum, 191, 192
Skeat, W. W., H4
Skelton, John, 249, 354
Smoke, Algernon Blackwood’s, 127
Snakes, 23, 24, 54, 55, 78, 117, 134,
135. 25s

Sologub, Feodor, 331

365

Index

Southampton, Earl of, 40
Southey, Robert, 19, 255, 282, 339, 354
Stables, William Gordon, 314, 331, 340
Stahl, P. J., 332

Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 298
Steele, Richard, 281
Steen, Jan, 217

Steinlen, 226, 227, 292, 336, 341, 345
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 48
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 299
Stravinsky, Igor, 199, 343
Street, G. E., 214
Swan, John, 112
Swift, Jonathan, 209, 222
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 257, 331,
354

Sylva, Carmen, 201, 340
Sylvestre, A., 292
Symons, Arthur, 289

Taigheirm, The, 99 et seqq.

Taine, Hippolyte, 23, 267, 354, 355
Taranto, Archbishop of, 280, 281
Tarkington, Booth, 18, 26, 27, 28, 70,
332

Tasso, 248

Techow, Herr, 176, 177
Teichner, Miriam, 259, 260
Telegony, 312
Teniers, 196

Tennyson, Alfred, 256, 355
Thackeray, W. M., 231
Theatre, 13, 170 et seqq., 341, 342
Theuriet, Andre, 277, 292
Thorndike, Edward L., 46, 320
Tieck, Ludwig, 19, 97, i8o, 342
Till Eulenspiegel, 72, 149
Todhunter, John, 342
Tom Quartz, Mahk Twain’s, 294, 295
Tomson, Arthur, 212, 226, 343, 345
Tomson, Graham R. : See Rosamund
Marriott Watson

Topsell, Edward, 30, 123, 124, 139, 317
Toussenel, Alphonse, 66, 340
Tschaikovsky, 180, 198, 343
Tuberville, George, 251, 355
Tulden, van, 217

Twain, Mark, 18, 124, 125, 173, 293
et seqq., 332, 340, 346

Unamuno, 44

Valmont de Bomare, 196, 317
Van Vechten, Carl, 72, 346
Van Vechten, Derrick Teunis, 137
Vaucaire, Maurice, 292
Vega, Lope de, 248
Velazquez, 217
Verlaine, Paul, 267, 355
Veronese, 216

Vevey, Artault de, 5, 49, 321
Viollet-le-Duc, 215
Voltaire, 187

Vulson de la Colombiere, 86

Wagner, Richard, 204
Wain, Louis, n6, 200, 225, 226, 326,
329, 330, 337. 338, 345
Wainewright, Thomas Griffiths, 282
Walpole, Horace, 282
Walter, Eugene, 178, 342
Ward, Artemus, 210
Ward, Mrs. Humphrey, 232
Warner, Charles Dudley, 19, 76, 299,
et. seqq., 340

Watson, Rosamund Marriott, 20, 66,
255. 257, 258, 346, 355
Watson, William, 258, 355
Watteau, 217
Webster, Noah, 65, 137
Weckerlin, J. B., 195, 203
Weir, Harrison, 116, 166, 175, 176,
226, 311, 326, 331, 352, 357
Welsh laws concerning cats, 161 et
seqq.

Whiffle, Peter, 233
Whistler, J. McNeill, 291
White Cat, The, 150, 180, 197, 198,
327

White, Gilbert, 10
Whitman, Walt, 35, 253, 289
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 275
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, 258, 259, 355
Wilder, Burt G., 318, 319
Wilkins, Mary E., 298, 317, 328
Willy, 15, 189, 332, 333
Willy, Colette: See Colette
Wilson, Francis, 109, 341
Wilson, Mortimer, 200
Winslow, Helen M., 176, 177, 311

366

Wister, S. B., 14, 295,
Wolsey, Cardinal, 161
Wood, Rev. J. G., 4,
125, 131, 325, 341
Wordsworth, William,
Wortley, Col. Stuart, 5

Index

341 Wright, Cornelia, 80

Wynter, Andrew, 4, 5, 50, 341

31, 45, 50, 62,

Zola, £mile, 17, 240, 277, 333
175, 256, 355 Zucchero, Federigo, 216
r Zut, Guy Wetmore Carryl’s, 242, 243

367

TJie

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